Your Mind Was Never Meant to Be Empty

(screen whooshes) (mouse clicks) (bright music) Headspace Studios. (bright music fades) (gentle music) Hi, it's Dora here, and welcome to "Radio Headspace." (gentle music) Now, when I tell people that I'm a mindfulness teacher at Headspace, one of the first responses I hear is something like, "Oh, meditation isn't for me," and before I even ask why, they usually follow it up with a confession. "My mind is too restless. I can never make it still." "I tried it once, and I'm just such a bad meditator." And the funny thing is these confessions are almost always made completely unprovoked, but they're incredibly common. So common, in fact, that I remember having the exact same thought when I first started meditating. When I first began practicing, I remember sitting down, closing my eyes, and almost immediately thinking, "I am terrible at this." My mind was everywhere, planning what I was gonna eat later, replaying conversations from the day before, thinking about what I should be doing instead of sitting here. And I thought meditation was supposed to make me calm, but what I didn't realize at the time was how revealing the practice would be because meditation didn't immediately make my mind calmer. First, it showed me how restless my mind already was, and that was a bit of a surprise. (gentle music) (birds chirping) In Buddhist teachings, there's a phrase used to describe the nature of the mind, which is the monkey mind. It's the restless, unsettled state of mind that jumps from thought to thought, just like a monkey swinging from vine to vine. And when we first sit down to meditate, that monkey mind suddenly becomes very obvious. So many people believe they're failing meditation because their mind wanders, they can't focus the whole time, or there's simply too many thoughts. But here's something important to remember. Mind wandering is not a mistake. It's actually a shared human experience. Our minds were designed to wander. So when the mind starts wandering during meditation, it's not that we're doing something wrong. The mind is doing exactly what minds are supposed to do, and this is what I often remind my students. The moment that you notice that your mind has wandered, that moment is the practice. (bright gentle music) There's a story I love that illustrates this beautifully. "There once was a young traveler who came to a quiet monastery seeking wisdom. He told an old monk, 'My thoughts never stop. I can't understand my own heart.' The monk led him to a small pond and stirred the water with a stick. 'Look,' he said. The traveler leaned over the pond but only saw ripples and broken reflections. 'I see nothing clearly,' he replied. The monk then set the stick aside and waited. Slowly, the water began to settle. The ripples faded. The sky reflected clearly, and the pebbles at the bottom became visible. 'Your mind is the same,' the monk said gently. 'When it's disturbed by fear, desire,...