Let stray thoughts fall away

“Simple manual tasks, the kind we often seek to obliterate by playing the radio while we work, are actually precious opportunities to strengthen our capacity for inner silence. For with the radio off we can use the activity to practice resting our awareness on the working surface – the place where the newspaper touches the window we are washing, or where the broom’s bristles sweep the floor. If our attention strays we can simply and gently notice that it has, and return it to the working surface. 

This practice gradually weakens the hold upon us of hectic, self-propelled imaginings and inner conversations, streams of consciousness which seem to be thinking of us as helpless bystanders, rather than we thinking of them… We tend to strengthen whatever it is to which we give our attention. So the practice of inner silence is a gentle practice simply of letting stray thoughts fall away as we notice them, and returning our attention to the present.”