W MAG

It's only when you're instructed to clear your mind that you become acutely aware of just how many thoughts you have bouncing around in your brain at once. 

I was given such a prompt by a friendly audio recording at the start of a 33-minute meditation session last week, which took place in the womb-like, cushioned Dome Room at the new Inscape studio in Flatiron. It all sounded simple enough: Breath in through your mouth, out through your nose, and look inward. Yeah, okay.

But when I closed my eyes, my thoughts lit up: "My breath smells like coffee... I think I'm getting a cavity... The jeans I'm wearing are too tight... I should stop eating so many of those chocolate-covered almonds from Prêt à Manger... What time is it?"

I opened one eye and looked at my watch. Not even three minutes had passed. The other meditators were smiling. They looked so peaceful. Would I ever be able to reach that place of calm? Were they even calm, or where they just pretending? I closed my eyes again and tried to focus on my breathing, but in doing so discovered that I'm incapable of even controlling the one thing I've been doing since birth.

Read Full Article Here