Mental Proliferation

Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session, we're going to talk about the word papancha. Now this is a word from the Pali language and it means the countless generation of pointless thoughts, mental proliferation. When one thought leads to another, then another, then another then another. This is papancha.

I first learned about this word while practicing meditation in Burma. It's used to describe the mental proliferation that can get activated by a single sense experience such as a sight, a sound, a smell, taste, sensation. And we've all experienced it. I'm sure you already had that recognition when hearing the definition. Just one thought triggers another thought, which triggers another thought and triggers another thought until several minutes have gone by and you're completely lost in some trail of thinking that no longer has anything to do with the original experience that arose.

That's papancha. And I, I love the word, papancha, because the way it sounds is, at least for me, how the experience of mental proliferation feels. All that ping ponging of this thought, this thought, this thought, this thought. It just feels like how the word papancha sounds. So how can we use this? Well, in your meditation practice, when you notice this mental proliferation arise, one, recognize that there's a word for this, papancha.

And because there's a word for it, it means every other human has experienced it. So you're in good company. It's normal. And you can use it to label the experience so that it doesn't become so personal. A lot of times when the thoughts are going in all these different directions, we can feel like, you know, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with my mind? Why is it doing this? Why I won't to stop thinking? But instead, if we just go, Oh, that's papancha.

Right? It kind of depersonalizes the experience and puts a name on something in a way that allows us to just recognize it for what it is,ah mental proliferation, papancha. So I invite you to, to start to bring that into your meditation practice and even throughout your day, when you notice that mental proliferation and setting, instead of getting caught up in judgment or self-berating, just say, Oh, there's papancha. There's papancha. And bring the attention back to the present moment. Mind goes off again, there's papancha.

And have some fun with it. At the heart of it. I think that's the biggest thing we really want to cultivate in our practice, little bit more playfulness, a little bit more understanding and a little bit more ease in relationship to our mind, especially our papancha mind. So enjoy adding this to your practice. Thank you for your practice and let's settle in for today's meditation.