Throughout his 14-minute guided meditation, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche reminds the viewer that it’s normal for thoughts to come up mid-meditation. Instead of clinging onto them and headed to wherever they want you to go, Mingyur Rinpoche asks you to let the thought go. Allow it to leave your body as you exhale. And when another comes, do the same thing.
Meditation isn’t about the absence of thought: it’s about situating yourself fully in the present moment, with whatever baggage and burdens you have.
A report by The Washington Post shows that downloads for “mindfulness” apps like Headspace and Calm have spiked over quarantine, implying people's yearning for a cure to the madness, an escape route from a world that seems increasingly bleaker by the hour.
However, meditation is more than just escapist soma. Although carving out 10 minutes a day (Headspace’s shortest sessions are a mere three minutes) to meditate does provide a reprieve from whatever it is you were doing, there's still a lot to takeaway from it and make the practice worth your while.
Learning to breathe again
Working with your breath is perhaps the biggest lesson you learn while meditating. It’s the signal that drives every other body function, and it’s the reason why every guided meditation focuses on it.