Trustme: it's hard to say, which is partly why I decided to focus only on breathing. The reason I found it difficult is because it's often hard to determine what constitutes a 'thought'. Clearly, verbalised 'internal chat' is a thought. But, what about an image or a memory? In order to do it properly, I felt I had to class these as thoughts, but some times the imagery is so vague it wasn't immediately obvious it was occurring. If I were to include any mental episode or occurrence as constituting a thought, then I couldn't hold a silent mind for very long at all (it certainly never surpassed 10 seconds).
In one of Steve's articles he mentions that he worked up to holding a silent mind for around 90 seconds. Once I've completed this 30 day trial (on breathing or focussing on the tonal noise), I may try the silent mind again.
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