This article is in response to a question I received a few days ago from a new friend.
He asked ” Should I be thinking during meditation?”
First and foremost let us start by saying there are over 10,000 forms of meditation.
Wow!
As many meditation styles and techniques as you can imagine exist out in the world. From mantra chanting, to visualization practice, to physical exercises. All these techniques share a common ground, and that is they all fall under the umbrella of meditation.
Meditation is most often regulation or control of internal mental processes; Or possibly release of control and regulation depending on the circumstances. Not all meditation is aimed at emptying our thoughts and turning off our internal dialog.
What type of meditation you choose to practice today or this week is up to your personal goals and intent!
If we were to be practicing Emptiness Meditation; then yes I would suggest that the intent of your practice would be to let go of thinking, this doesn’t mean fight your thoughts but rather let any rising thoughts come and go.
Let us first clearly define the word “think”
Let us consider the etymology of thinking which :
The word thought comes from Old English þoht, or geþoht, from stem of þencan “to conceive of in the mind, consider”
If we consider thinking to be” to conceive of in the mind”
That doesn’t sound to restricting in itself lets consider what conceive means:
Ah, . . . and herein lies our problem.
The root of thought is to conceive; and to conceive is to “form or devise a plan in the mind”
Well now we can see why thinking during meditation can be counter productive.
To plan or devise is similar to an expectation or assumption that your mind has made. It can be fair to say that attempting to meditate with a pre-devised plan will be much more difficult than approaching your practice openly with compassion and understanding. This is the attitude we cultivate everyday; no devise or plan, only the strength and patience to see through what needs to be done. This idea of approaching our meditation without expectations is the same attitude we cultivate that allows us to successfully embark on our day ahead of us.
Our thoughts are often preconceived understandings.
The Buddha says ” your understandings are misunderstandings”.
We can challenge ourselves a little extra this week by trying to let go of some old ideas and instead of forming new ones just enjoy the emptiness.
If our thoughts are misunderstandings manifested from attachment to ideas, then our ideas are manifestations from our attachment to our misunderstandings.
It has been said that if a beginner of Emptiness Meditation practiced for one hour of silent meditation, only 3 mintues of that hour was his mind still and silent. This is the reason so many hours are required to notice significant levels of improvement in Emptiness Meditation.
Our minds today are constantly over stimulated, meditation provides a much needed rejuvenation, and repair process on the brain that can often only be duplicated in deep R.E.M. sleep.
At the beginning of the Article I had to resist my urge to start with archaic paradoxical statements so I will leave you with them now;
You should be thinking of not thinking
Always meditate without thought, keep thoughts still in meditation. Never meditate without thought, let thoughts be free in meditation.
Never be attached to thoughts while in meditation; Never be attached to not being attached while in meditation.
Find stillness in movement; find movement in stillness.
Expect to much of your practice and you will surely fall short, be grateful of every breath, and each moment is your reward.
Thanks for reading another KungFuNerd.com blog post
have a great day,
Brendon
Some amazing books on Meditation and Mindfulness I have linked below.
– See more at: http://www.kungfunerd.com/thinking-and-meditation/#sthash.PzdRtnnb.dpuf