Zen Secrets: How to Stop Battling Your Thoughts in Meditation

Ending the Battle with Thoughts

Are you exhausting yourself trying to fight your thoughts during meditation?

When I began meditating I was convinced that it was about making thoughts disappear. My number one tactic for quieting my mental noise and completely changing my approach to life and meditation was to change my relationship with my thoughts.

And now, I’ll tell you how you can stop battling your own mind. This is not just a fancy new-age concept. People speak about self-love, or about acceptance.

How you deal with your thoughts has implications for anxiety, the need for control, and repetitive thinking. And we are not only talking about a small matter; this affects not only how you treat your thoughts, but also how you treat yourself and others.

How you think about yourself, how you think about your friends and family, how you think about everything.

I’ll show you how to go beyond your thinking and find clarity and calmness in very simple steps. This knowledge will stay with you for your whole life. 

I remind myself of it at least once a day, especially when I meditate and find myself getting too entangled in thoughts—before, during, and after meditation. It’s just very easy to apply.

Before we start, let me quickly introduce myself.

My name is Christian. I’ve become a Zen-Buddhist Dharma Teacher, but now I mostly practice on my own. I’m a certified energy healer, and I help others find their own path with a direct, everyday approach to spirituality.

Why does it seem so challenging to attain a silent mind in our meditation with thoughts constantly pulling us away? And why do we think we need to fight our thoughts in order to achieve clarity of mind?

The War Inside Your Mind

Every meditator is aware of this struggle. We sit down to meditate and almost immediately get flooded with thoughts. All kinds of thoughts. Thoughts that make us anxious, such as the fear of making mistakes or anxiety about the future.

We start dwelling on past regrets—things we did or didn't do that we should or shouldn't have done. Or we have all kinds of thoughts—habitual thinking about the day, what we’ve already done, what we still need to do, the weather, and so on.

Maybe, as experienced meditators, we start thinking about controlling our thoughts. We want to make our meditation perfect—just stillness. We believe we need to silence our minds to perceive reality clearly, attain enlightenment, and finally realize our true Self.

And as a result, we believe we need to get rid of our thinking.

The irony is that when we become aware of our thinking—something that’s easily noticed during meditation since we’re sitting still and just doing nothing—it’s like using a microscope to observe our thoughts. But then, we try to use more thoughts to stop our current thoughts.

In all the spiritual books we’ve read, we’re told that we need to silence our minds, let go of our thoughts, and become empty. Now we are using these new ideas to battle our existing thoughts. And then we wonder why we can’t keep a silent and still mind.

Sometimes it feels even worse than going through the day unconsciously because it’s like there’s a war raging inside our minds. We have split our consciousness into two parts and they are fighting each other. One part keeps producing thoughts about the past or future, while the other part is trying to let go of these thoughts.

So we keep trying to repress our thoughts with other thoughts—thoughts that say, 'This or that thought shouldn’t be here.' We act very violently toward the thoughts that keep appearing in our minds, clinging to the idea of finally defeating them. We end up frustrated with meditation and ourselves, feeling worse than before because we just can’t win this battle.

Wouldn’t it be nice to finally win this battle and reach the place of stillness and clarity we’ve been seeking all along?

Finding Peace in Defeat

Good news. There is a way. There is a way to win the battle inside your mind. Maybe you can already sense it, and if you do, you might notice your ego feeling very afraid of it.

The solution is that we need to lose the battle.

Yes, you heard me right. 

We need to be completely defeated and lose this battle.

Trying to fight our thoughts simply doesn’t work. So why would it work if we just keep repeating it? That’s why a different strategy is necessary.

Since battling our own thoughts implies ego involvement in our meditation, we need to shift our strategy to one that is more accepting. If we try to fight our thoughts and our ego, which is just a collection of various thoughts and feelings, we are still acting from our ego. We are even increasing the strength of our ego since we are putting energy into a part within us that thinks it's necessary to fight something in order to attain something else.

Therefore, we have to lose. We need to be defeated.

I know it sounds crazy, and no ego ever wants to hear this, let alone do it. But if we want to break out from the cycle of fighting against our thoughts and ourselves, it can only be done in this way. 

• Being defeated means not getting involved in the fight anymore.
• Being defeated means accepting everything as it is.
• Being defeated means offering no resistance to what arises within us.

Only when our egos, our tendency to control, are utterly defeated can we see reality as it is. We are not struggling anymore, not trying to impose one thing over another; we are in utter acceptance of what is. And only in this state of mind can there be silence, clarity, and calmness. Only in this state can the possibility of awakening to our true nature arise. 

There was never someone who attained enlightenment by fighting against his ego or his thoughts. Maybe you are the very first one, but I don't think that will happen.

Freedom Through Non-Engagement

How do we let go of the battle inside our minds? 

How can we stop fighting our thoughts?

We stop fighting against our own thoughts by simply observing them. In observation, there is neither judgment nor attachment. There is nothing that would oppose any of our thoughts. We simply let each thought pass through our awareness and look at it.

A famous Zen Master named Shunryu Suzuki once said: “In meditation, leave your front door and your back door open. Let thoughts come and go. Just don't serve them tea.”

So instead of attaching to the thoughts and ideas we are having, we simply let them pass through us. We don’t attach to them, we don’t confirm them, but we also don’t negate them. We simply look at them.

It’s quite easy if you avoid this common mistake. This mistake will prevent you from observing your thoughts, and pull you back into the battle within your mind. Don’t try to get rid of your thoughts that want to battle other thoughts.

This is really important. When you observe your thinking, do not judge thoughts based on good or bad. Simply allow any thought to pass through your awareness, no matter what the thought points to.

If you witness a violent thought, a thought that wants to battle your thoughts, or a thought that complains about something, do not attempt to stop it. If you try to stop it, you are back in the battle. Even if you try not to stop it, you are also back in the battle.

Many people hear about this and now they try to suppress their thoughts that want to suppress other thoughts. This is a very common mistake. Our ego uses everything to continue the battle within our minds.

That’s why we need to accept any thought that’s appearing. Any thought will always be for or against something. So we don't pay attention to what the thought is pointing to; we just observe it. Whatever thought follows another is also allowed to happen. Whatever thought comes up, just observe it. If you find yourself drawn into a thought and become aware of it, you might judge yourself for doing so. Now simply allow the judgment to happen.

Our ego constantly seeks a thought to attach to, regardless of its content. It always tries to cling to one particular view and remain with it. So it will also use the method I’m describing right now in order to assert itself.

But that's not a problem. The ego simply wants to stay in business; that's its function. So don't even attempt to fight against it.

So that’s it.

Remember not to try to fight your ego or your thoughts. Just observe whatever happens.

It’s actually very easy and it will change your life.

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Your friend of the way, bye!