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Passive protocol of thoughts. A mindfulness exercise.

The "passive protocol of thoughts" is a meditation method to achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state.

I found this method for myself, but I guess similar methods are well known for ages. It is a mixture of meditation and writing a diary.

Be sure to have roughly 5 to 15 minutes without being interrupted. Make your phone silent. Try to be in a silent environment. Switch of noise production things like a radio. Using IT terms: No input.
Set an alarm clock. How long? It's your choice. If unsure use 12 minutes.
Take a sheet of paper and a pen or another way to be able to take notes.
Sit down. You should feel warm and comfortable.
Maybe listen to some very calm and slow music
Close your eyes.
Watch your breath. Be a silent witness.
Do not change the way you breath. Let your breath flow like the breath wants to go.
Maybe your lunge wants to do Diaphragmatic_breathing. Maybe not. It does not matter.
If you want to, you can count the number of breaths you do.
If you want to, you can change your pose after ten breaths. For example folding hands like praying (do ten breaths), then ten breaths with the hands not touching each other. This helps you from falling asleep.
It won't take long and you will start to think about something. This can be anything, something from the future, something about the past. Be passive. Let it come.
Write down this thought.
Don't judge your thought. It is neither good nor bad. It comes and it goes again.
Close your eyes and watch your breath again. If you want to you can count the number of breaths again (see above)
The next thought will come. Take a note. Let it come, let it go.
Do this until the alarm clock rings

If you are new to meditation, you should not do this longer then 15 minutes. Sometimes there are many thoughts, sometimes only view.

If you want to, archive these notes in a secret place. Or if you want to, do a little ceremony and burn them.

In Buddhism, these sometimes "crazy" thoughts are called Monkey mind. I like the term, but not more. I am not a Buddhist. I don't know all these foreign words of this Wikipedia page.

Sometimes I feel Ambivalence. This method helps me to achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state.

Instead of doing it once a week for two hours, I think it is better to do it once or twice a week for ten minutes.

You likely get a thought like "Oh, I forgot xyz. I need to this now". Then please keep on sitting. Just highlight this note somehow. This way you can do this important thing after the passive protocol of thoughts is finished.

But you already think about your thoughts the whole day? Do you think this method won't let you experience something new? Writing down the thoughts slows you down. This slowness gives you more consciousness. Just try it. Not only once, but maybe once a week for three months. I think you will notice more consciousness.

My background

I meditated a bit at the age of 17. But stopped doing since it felt uncomfortable.

When I was 35 I started to practice Yoga daily. When I was 40 I started to write a diary.

I was inspired by Yuval Noah Harari's chapter about meditation in his book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.

Today writing this down I am 43 years old.

What's it not

No esotericism, no god, no magic energy, no religion

I avoid any kind of esotericism/god/religion. I believe in science. There is and Physical Energy and Mental Energy. And there is positive/negative energy which means Optimism/Pessimism.

But there is no Esotheric Energy. There are your feelings, and they are stronger than your muscles. Maybe you feel a lot, maybe nothing. It might be even possible that you see some kind of magic light with closed eyes (A phenomenology of meditation-induced light experiences).

Relax, it is just an illusion. I know two people who start to believe in God because they have felt/seen this phenomenon. One believes in Christianity God since this day and the other beliefs in some magic esoteric energy. I tried to convince them, but I failed.

Not a diary

It is not writing a diary. If you write a diary you are not passive. If you do the passive protocol of thoughts, you just take a short note. These notes usually don't make sense to someone else. If you write a diary you tell a story, the second sentence refers to the first sentence. The ppot is different: Likely, the second note does not relate to the first note at all.

Not a brain dump

It is not a brain dump. According to techtarget.com, a brain dump is:

A brain dump (sometimes spelled braindump, or brain-dump) is a complete transfer of accessible knowledge about a particular subject from your brain to some other storage medium, such as paper or your computer's hard drive. It is common for someone who maintains a blog, a personal journal that's shared on the Internet, to refer to the blog as a brain dump. The term brain dump can also be used in an educational context. For example, someone preparing for an exam might perform a brain dump by writing out as much information as they can remember about something they've studied.

PPoT is not a brain dump, because if you do PPoT, you don't squeeze your brain like an orange. You write it down if thoughts come up. If there are no thoughts or feelings, then you wait and/or watch your breath.

Nirvana

For me, Nirvana is one of the best rock bands. With "smells like teen spirit" being one of their greatest hit.

PPoT has no long-term goal. It should help you to find some peace today.

I think it has a positive long-term effect.

Reading the old notes can be fun.

I don't want the monkey mind to vanish. I think it is healthy to give the monkey mind some time and space for "dancing".

Life would be boring without the monkey mind.

I think the above point of view is very different from the traditional definition of Nirvana

If practiced in group ...

If you practice the ppot in a group, then tell the group three times that there is no need to talk about private thoughts.

And after the ppot do it in a round robin way. For example clockwise, not "who wants to talk first, talks first".

I was told that the passive protocol of thought method is like Vipassanā. I can't judge this. I don't know Vipassanā. The Wikipedia page is full of words that I have never heard before. At the current moment, I am not in the mood for learning these words. I think it makes more sense to learn the current scientific findings.

Feedback is welcome

I am not a native speaker. If there is something not clear, then please write to me (guettli.ppot@thomas-guettler.de) or create an issue here at Github. Please tell me typos or anything else which could be improved.

If you know a method which is similar to this method, then please tell me! I am curious and always interested in new stuff.