3) Thought, Sensations, Responses
Thought being necessary for speaking, what is your own experience? Watch your speaking carefully...do you pre-think everything you say? Is your talking all "thought up" before you say it? Do you "think" to speak?
Speaking and self-referential thinking use different parts of the brain. Speaking is handled by Broca's area.
Thought being necessary for speaking, what is your own experience? Watch your speaking carefully...do you pre-think everything you say? Is your talking all "thought up" before you say it? Do you "think" to speak?
Speaking and self-referential thinking use different parts of the brain. Speaking is handled by Broca's area.
Self-referential narrative/thought is generated by the default mode network. If you watch carefully, your "blah, blah" is all about, and contains, "I, me, mine", explicitly or implicitly; this drives our stress, fears, craving and suffering.
"No thoughts" means basically no "self-referential, blah, blah" problematic thoughts. Most folk have something like 55,000 thoughts/day; 500 years ago, we had 5,000. That sounds like something to work on. Watch your sensations arise, see thoughts about them arise and turn them into emotions, add memories, and more stories, and voila, problems.
The "thoughts" that we work with are the ongoing narrative of self-reflective concerns, worries, plans, projections, worries about the past and future.
The philosophical arguments of whether an image, emotion, sensation, feeling in body-mind, etc. is ultimately a "thought", or not, is of no real interest. we are not concerned with stopping the activity of our nerves or shutting down all stimuli or responses. How would the body protect itself from harm or destruction if the ego tried to suppress or ignore any and all sensations and responses, as some try to do?
Why should we deaden the mind so that it is unable to function in useful ways? It is a wonderful capability and tool if properly used. The development of a secondary, symbolic consciousness about 100,000 years ago gave us the ability to plan that was critical to agriculture, co-operation and task division that moved us from hunting and gathering to agriculture and enabled our species to survive and prosper.
We are working to move beyond conflict, fear, confusion and unhappiness, not making our body-mind non-functional and placing it in peril. The "goal" is happiness; it can be found by moving beyond self-referential thought by deconstructing the illusion of an "I, me, mine". Thankfully, it is possible, and that is all that is needed.
There are excellent scientific papers showing that in only two months of simple daily meditation for 45 minutes, the brain can change its functional pattern from the typical, unsettling, troubling "narrative" functioning to "experiential", moment-by-moment, awareness and presence.
Much excellent ongoing research work, some of which I am collaborating in and am a subject in, is showing that if the period of meditation is extended significantly, the "default state", i.e. what your mind does when you aren't doing anything, will move permanently from endless narrative to this "experiential", moment-to-moment blissful awareness and presence. IME, it is worth every second you devote to it.
Sources:
"No thoughts" means basically no "self-referential, blah, blah" problematic thoughts. Most folk have something like 55,000 thoughts/day; 500 years ago, we had 5,000. That sounds like something to work on. Watch your sensations arise, see thoughts about them arise and turn them into emotions, add memories, and more stories, and voila, problems.
The "thoughts" that we work with are the ongoing narrative of self-reflective concerns, worries, plans, projections, worries about the past and future.
The philosophical arguments of whether an image, emotion, sensation, feeling in body-mind, etc. is ultimately a "thought", or not, is of no real interest. we are not concerned with stopping the activity of our nerves or shutting down all stimuli or responses. How would the body protect itself from harm or destruction if the ego tried to suppress or ignore any and all sensations and responses, as some try to do?
Why should we deaden the mind so that it is unable to function in useful ways? It is a wonderful capability and tool if properly used. The development of a secondary, symbolic consciousness about 100,000 years ago gave us the ability to plan that was critical to agriculture, co-operation and task division that moved us from hunting and gathering to agriculture and enabled our species to survive and prosper.
We are working to move beyond conflict, fear, confusion and unhappiness, not making our body-mind non-functional and placing it in peril. The "goal" is happiness; it can be found by moving beyond self-referential thought by deconstructing the illusion of an "I, me, mine". Thankfully, it is possible, and that is all that is needed.
There are excellent scientific papers showing that in only two months of simple daily meditation for 45 minutes, the brain can change its functional pattern from the typical, unsettling, troubling "narrative" functioning to "experiential", moment-by-moment, awareness and presence.
Much excellent ongoing research work, some of which I am collaborating in and am a subject in, is showing that if the period of meditation is extended significantly, the "default state", i.e. what your mind does when you aren't doing anything, will move permanently from endless narrative to this "experiential", moment-to-moment blissful awareness and presence. IME, it is worth every second you devote to it.
Sources: