Leaves on a stream

Leaves on a stream. This is a practice for noticing thoughts without getting tangled in them. The mind produces thoughts all day, the way the heart produces beats. Some are useful. Many are not. The trouble is rarely the thought itself. It is how tightly we hold it. This practice is about loosening the grip a little.

Sit comfortably. Eyes closed, or resting softly on a point in front of you. Take a slow breath out.

Now imagine you are sitting beside a stream. A small one, the kind you might find on a hillside or at the edge of a village. The water is moving gently, flowing from one side of your view to the other. On the surface of the water, every now and then, a leaf floats past.

Take a moment to build the picture. The sound of the water. The light on it. The leaves, drifting.

Now, for the next few minutes, every time a thought appears in your mind, take it, place it on a leaf, and let the leaf float past. You do not need to push the leaf. The stream does that. You place the thought, and you watch it go.

A thought may be a word, a sentence, a picture, a memory, a worry about later. Whatever it is, put it on a leaf.

If the thought is: I am not doing this right. Put it on a leaf.

If the thought is: this is boring. On a leaf.

If the thought is a plan for dinner, or something someone said last week, or a list of what you have to do tomorrow. Leaf. Leaf. Leaf.

Let's begin. I will be quiet for a while.

If the stream has stopped, or you have been carried down it by a thought, that is normal. It will happen many times. Every time you notice it, you have done the practice. Come back to the bank, sit down, and start the stream moving again.

Some thoughts will come back again and again. Put each one on a new leaf each time. You are not trying to get rid of them. You are practising watching them go by.

Some thoughts will be heavy, or sharp. A thought about yourself that stings. Those go on leaves too. The stream carries them the same way.

If a thought says: this is not working. Leaf.

Last minute. Keep placing. Keep watching.

Now let the stream fade. Let the picture go.

Notice that for the last few minutes, thoughts came and thoughts went, and you were the one watching. You were not the thoughts. You were the one sitting on the bank.

That is the whole practice. You can use the picture any time a thought gets its hooks in. Leaf, stream, watch it go.

Take a slow breath, and open your eyes when you are ready.