Skill in Labelling

Develop an understanding of this labelling technique and introduce it into your daily meditation to help clarify distractions and settle your mind's wandering.

• Hindrance Weakened: MH 06: Mind Wandering: Your mind finds distraction more enjoyable than your meditation object.
• Meditation Length: 30 min.

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You can incorporate simple labels into your daily meditation to help settle your wandering mind by gently repeating a simple, silent word that describes what you are currently experiencing.  

Step 1:  With hands in your lap, thumbs lightly touching, begin your meditation with mindfulness of your body. Use slow, softening breaths to relax into the experience of your body until you feel very present within it.

• Label: To help ground your attention during the beginning of your meditation you can silently repeat: "sitting", "sitting", tuning into what it feels like to sit.

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Step 2: Become aware of your breathing as it flows within your body. 

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Step 3: Feel the gentle stretch as the breath draws in, and the relax as the breath goes out.

• Labels: It can be helpful to silently say: "in, in" as the breath comes in, and "out, out" as the breath goes out, tuning into what it feels like to breathe.

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Distraction

Step 4: At some time during meditation your attention will be drawn away from your meditation object.  When this happens intentionally turn your attention towards what is distracting you and clarify this movement of attention by labelling the distraction appropriately in terms of your experience. 

• Labels: You can clarify distraction with simple labels such as: "hearing, hearing", "thinking, thinking", "itching, itching" and so on. If a thinking pattern arises again and again during your meditation it is, then helpful to clarify the emotional charge that is feeding it. This is done by observing and labelling the type of thinking that is present such as: "planning, planning", "discussing, discussing", "doubting, doubting" etc.

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Step 5: Apply the GOSS formula when your attention wanders.  

• Take advantage of any wandering of your attention away from this grounding point to cultivate your perception of your mind's anatta (not-self, autonomous nature).
• Integrate labels into the GOSS formula to clarify your experience and the process.

When using labels during meditation, you should begin by bringing awareness to the experience of your meditation object. 

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In the case of your body as it sits, you silently say:  

• “sitting, sitting". 
• The first label ‘sitting’, points your awareness towards the experience of sitting, the second label allows you to mentally feel it. 

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In the case of your breathing as it flows through your body, you silently say:

• “in, in” as the breath draws in, and “out, out” as the breath goes out. 
• The first label ‘in’, points your awareness towards what your breathing is doing, the second allows you to mentally feel it.  

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This process of acknowledging what you are aware of, and mentally feeling the experience of it, is the purpose of repeating it twice. At some stage your attention will wander, this is the nature of the habitual mind. 

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If your attention is drawn out to a sound, you silently say:

• “hearing, hearing”; to an itch: “itching, itching”, if you feel frustrated: “frustrated, frustrated” etc.  
• The first label is used to acknowledge where your attention now sits, the second to mentally feel the experience of the distraction.  

This is the important part.

Yes, labels should be considered like training wheels on your bicycle. While it feels wonderful to ride down the road while being balanced by your training wheels, there is even more freedom that can be accessed when you take them off.

Just like when you remove your training wheels from your bicycle you will lose balance, when you stop using labels during meditation you may find that you become lost within the mind again. Slowly wean yourself off labels in this case, only using labels to clarify experiences that are unclear to you, or when you become completely lost within them. Instead begin to reward your mind to change its wandering behaviour by using the GOSS formula: Ground --> observe --> soften --> smile.

• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• Insight Timer App: Guided Meditation.
• You Tube: Video Instructions.