Again, I'm honored to be included in your LVN Stories. You've written a wonderful analogy about being and noticing! And your essay and my story are serendipitous, as you mentioned. ✨
Thank you for this today, Niall. It is a breath of fresh air after a harrowing week of hostile drivers, volatile conversations, and lots of intensity in the world outside my home.
Fun thoughts! Your comment about meditation, though, needs a little clarification, because characterizing the goal as being a thoughtless state isn't really accurate. The goal of meditation, as I learned (and practice) it, is withdrawal from the outward-focused senses to one-pointed concentration and then absorption in the object of one's interior focus. A great place to start is, like you say in this post, with a single sense input, which helps one come to a state of awareness rather than thinking. With such a practice, one can learn to withdraw from all the senses and turn one's attention and awareness inwardly, ideally focusing on God/Divine Mother/Christ/Buddha Nature/etc., if you're so inclined, or alternately more impersonal qualities of higher consciousness like love, joy, peace, calmness, wisdom, energy, and even inner manifestations of light and sound.
It just so happens that when one is so concentrated and absorbed, like when you're entranced with something utterly beautiful in nature, then thoughts do cease within the intense awareness of deep, calm feeling. But if you lack a positive focus and simply trying to quiet your thoughts for the sake of quieting, you usually end up just thinking a lot about "not thinking."
Hi Kiran, thanks for your thoughts! I think we’re speaking the same language but just want to clarify. In my post I reference aiming to reach a thoughtless state as something that will prevent you from feeling at peace and instead will cause more unease as you get frustrated about not reaching it. From how I read your message it seems like you’re saying something similar. Is that fair to say?
Yes, that's a great way of putting it! If the aim is nothing more than "trying" to reach a thoughtless state without a real focus for your attention, then you'll just become frustrated at the futility of the exercise, which will, like you say, prevent you from feeling the peace you likely seek to begin with. Whatever "effort" there is in meditation really begins with relaxation.
Again, I'm honored to be included in your LVN Stories. You've written a wonderful analogy about being and noticing! And your essay and my story are serendipitous, as you mentioned. ✨
Like you, I love when those serendipitous moments comes together :) Appreciate your contribution, Tania!
Thank you for this today, Niall. It is a breath of fresh air after a harrowing week of hostile drivers, volatile conversations, and lots of intensity in the world outside my home.
Hi Jeannie, I'm grateful that this feels like a space of being in our true nature!
It really is surprising. Life is full of passion projects. All we have to do to notice them is switch off airplane mode.
100% Rasmus! The more open we can be, the more opportunities arise.
What a great read! I love your analogies! I also had to learn that meditation isn't trying to still all thoughts. It's just being.
I wrote something recently on herethat's inline with this post, I think.
https://tinyurl.com/mskhmuw5
Just being, that's exactly it! I love the messages from Thich Nhat Hanh :)
Fun thoughts! Your comment about meditation, though, needs a little clarification, because characterizing the goal as being a thoughtless state isn't really accurate. The goal of meditation, as I learned (and practice) it, is withdrawal from the outward-focused senses to one-pointed concentration and then absorption in the object of one's interior focus. A great place to start is, like you say in this post, with a single sense input, which helps one come to a state of awareness rather than thinking. With such a practice, one can learn to withdraw from all the senses and turn one's attention and awareness inwardly, ideally focusing on God/Divine Mother/Christ/Buddha Nature/etc., if you're so inclined, or alternately more impersonal qualities of higher consciousness like love, joy, peace, calmness, wisdom, energy, and even inner manifestations of light and sound.
It just so happens that when one is so concentrated and absorbed, like when you're entranced with something utterly beautiful in nature, then thoughts do cease within the intense awareness of deep, calm feeling. But if you lack a positive focus and simply trying to quiet your thoughts for the sake of quieting, you usually end up just thinking a lot about "not thinking."
Hi Kiran, thanks for your thoughts! I think we’re speaking the same language but just want to clarify. In my post I reference aiming to reach a thoughtless state as something that will prevent you from feeling at peace and instead will cause more unease as you get frustrated about not reaching it. From how I read your message it seems like you’re saying something similar. Is that fair to say?
Yes, that's a great way of putting it! If the aim is nothing more than "trying" to reach a thoughtless state without a real focus for your attention, then you'll just become frustrated at the futility of the exercise, which will, like you say, prevent you from feeling the peace you likely seek to begin with. Whatever "effort" there is in meditation really begins with relaxation.
Exactly, well said, it's a relaxation of attention rather!