When you meditate, let your thoughts be background noise.

Here’s one of the main questions I get when people are learning to meditate: How do I stop thinking? Listen, you don’t. Take this from a girl whose mind will always, always, forever run at a hundred miles an hour. There’s no stopping your thoughts from coming in at every angle, all the time. Some people have busier minds than others, but all of us face a constant barrage of thoughts entering our heads.

It’s fine. It doesn’t matter. Here’s what matters: just don’t tune into them. When a thought arises as you meditate, you have a few choices. You can cling to it, grab onto it like it’s a precious, precious thing you will never remember after meditation time is over. You can let it take you down a rabbit trail of other thoughts, and a whole lot of emotions, until you are totally worked up. OR, you can just…let the thought go by, and leave it be. When you choose the latter, you learn to let your thoughts be like background noise.

Don’t. Tune. In. Don’t turn up the volume. Don’t get rid of the static. Let the thought remain fuzzy, and slightly muted. Leave it at the back of your attention instead of bringing it all the way to the front.

Here’s a fun fact about me: I always wake up with a song in my head. (I think over half the day, my mind is like a constantly running jukebox. It’s delightful, really.)  Since I meditate first in the morning, usually that song comes right along with me. I have literally tried everything to get rid of this song. What I learned is that I probably won’t. And I have to be okay with that. The goal, instead, is not to turn my meditation session into a karaoke session. Pay the song no mind, move along, just let it be.

I don’t know what your particular mind hurdle will be, but rest assured, you’ll have one. You can still meditate, and practice Right Concentration. You can strengthen your mind muscle and train yourself to leave your thoughts, your mind tunes, your big swelling emotions, all in the background.

But give up the idea that you will get rid of your thoughts.

Right Concentration happens in the middle of the noise. That’s the point, really. Because if we can learn to focus somewhere, we can carry that capacity anywhere.

Can you find five minutes to practice leaving your thoughts as background noise this week?

This post belongs to my series on practicing the Eightfold Path. Find all my posts on Right Concentration here.