Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today, I'm going to explore our relationship to material things. So if you've been practicing meditation for a while, you most likely have already had the experience of, you know, sitting there in meditation and focusing on the object of meditation, maybe your breath, and then suddenly a thought or an image arises of a material thing you saw, maybe a couple of days ago or weeks ago. Maybe you saw it in an advertisement or shop window. It might've been a nice item of clothing, a gadget or something for the house, some sporting equipment.

And you know, these thoughts have a real allure to them. It really generates some feelings of craving and anticipation. Maybe we start to think about, you know, where we're going to get this thing or how we're going to get it, or what we're going to do once we have it. We think about sort of how much happier we'll be once we have it. Now the funny thing is that even though we tend to get really pulled in by these kinds of thoughts, most of us have had this kind of thought loop many times before where we think about the desired thing, we went and got it, and we got some temporary pleasure from it, and then we just sort of become a bit bored with it and moved on and started thinking about the next thing we wanted to acquire.

Now, of course, there's absolutely nothing wrong with thinking about and acquiring things that we can enjoy for a while. But at the same time, it's also really helpful to deeply recognize that those things won't actually bring us any lasting sense of fulfillment. And that that is what we most long for, a lasting sense of fulfillment. And I think it's just worth noting, that if we find ourselves spending quite a lot of time, a really significant amount of time, thinking about all the things that we want, then we're spending a lot of time caught in a mind state of craving and desire. And that can actually steer us away from the genuine sense of lasting contentment and fulfillment that we long for.

So there's an opportunity here when we're sitting in meditation and, you know, wanting thought arises, it's really valuable actually to practice a new way of relating with those wanting thoughts. So instead of always getting carried away by it, we practice just treating this thought like all other thoughts. We acknowledge it without following it. We let it arise and pass. Of course, we can really carry this into everyday life too.

Right? One simple practice to use in everyday life is when we find the mind getting caught up in a pattern of wanting a lot of material things, visualizing them, getting really excited about them. We can practice letting go of those thoughts and just bringing the focus back to the present moment. And you know, really just enjoying what's already here, what we already have. So you can just take a moment in that case to just connect with what's pleasant in your immediate present experience. You know, perhaps the sound of birds, feeling your breath or a cool breeze or whatever it is.

Now, again, this practice doesn't mean that you're giving up having nice things in life. It's more about how much time and mental energy is spent in a state of craving and dissatisfaction versus cultivating a state of contentment, gratitude and wholeness. So there's the invitation for today, to temper your cravings and train your contentment. We're going to explore this more in today's meditation. So let's start to settle in for that.

And as always, thank you for your practice.