What is meditation that is not a movement of thought?

[Faceless]

What does this meditation imply?

 And what does it not??

[Faceless]

If there is a ”motive/movement of volition” of any kind is this meditation free of the movement of thought?? 

Edited May 15, 2018 by Faceless

[Prabhaker]

27 minutes ago, Faceless said:

What is meditation that is not a movement of thought?

When meditation happens, there is state of no thought. We can't do it, it happens. 

We do techniques like vipassana etc. to prepare ground for meditation. Technique is not meditation.

[tsuki]

Netflix.

[Faceless]

6 minutes ago, Prabhaker said:

Technique is not meditation.

Interesting

Can a technique,  ”of the movement of thought” or ”an invitation/motive induced movement” move to an area free of thought? 

 

Or can a finite movement approach that which is infinite?

Can the part capture the whole?? 

Edited May 15, 2018 by Faceless

[Prabhaker]

5 minutes ago, Faceless said:

can a finite movement approach that which is infinite?

No, but obstacles , hindrances are finite. We can remove them. Techniques are needed to remove the obstacles in the way of meditation. So the work of the techniques is just to prepare the ground, is just to prepare the way, the passage. 

[Faceless]

I understand 

But to invite thought to end thought is a movement of thought?

So one may be attempting to approach the unknown with what is known...

Can we move from time to the timeless?

How can using thought end thought???

 

How do we know if thought is not in movement?

Edited May 15, 2018 by Faceless

[zoey101]

Okay, so I am trying to understand this lol but when you are meditating (sitting and breathing in silence) how are you "not thinking"? lol I tried it but couldn't help but jump from topic to topic in my head.

[Faceless]

12 minutes ago, zoey101 said:

Okay, so I am trying to understand this lol but when you are meditating (sitting and breathing in silence) how are you "not thinking"? lol I tried it but couldn't help but jump from topic to topic in my head.

yeah 

The moment you sit down to ”do something” the process of thought has been activated. 

In this case the mediator is the meditated. But in most cases ”The meditator” sees itself as seperate from the process ”meditation” 

Very good that you are staying with the fact @zoey101

Edited May 15, 2018 by Faceless

[cirkussmile]

23 minutes ago, Faceless said:

I understand 

But to invite thought to end thought is a movement of thought?

So one may be attempting to approach the unknown with what is known...

Can we move from time to the timeless?

How can using thought end thought???

 

How do we know if thought is not in movement?

23 minutes ago, Faceless said:

I understand 

But to invite thought to end thought is a movement of thought?

So one may be attempting to approach the unknown with what is known...

Can we move from time to the timeless?

How can using thought end thought???

 

How do we know if thought is not in movement?

No one said meditation is a movement of thought ? At least if done properly. 

Meditation is the opposite of thought and doing. It's observing what is and get direct experience of the impermanence of all things. And as Prabhaker said, it lays the foundation for realization to happen. 

How can you give tips on stopping psychological time when you didn't do it yourself? It just happened. Meditation can make that happen if practiced correctly with awareness and equanimity.

[Faceless]

1 minute ago, cirkussmile said:

How can you give tips on stopping psychological time when you didn't do it yourself

I saw that psychological time can not end by using time as a means. And ended it. 

[Faceless]

8 minutes ago, cirkussmile said:

Meditation can make that happen if practiced correctly with awareness and equanimity

Is practice a movement of thought.

Is not The practicer the practiced?

Edited May 15, 2018 by Faceless

[cirkussmile]

15 minutes ago, Faceless said:

Is practice a movement of thought.

Is not The practicer the practiced?

Please tell me. How can you understand this if you don't have the ability to look wthitin?

If you imply that meditation is useless than you are sharing a belief of yours. Only meditation may help or it may not. As you know, there's infinite aspects that makes a realisation happen. 

[Faceless]

10 minutes ago, cirkussmile said:

How can you understand this if you don't have the ability to look wthitin?

Why can't we look within without adding/perpetuating more to the content/movement of mind/thought? 

10 minutes ago, cirkussmile said:

If you imply that meditation is useless than you are sharing a belief of yours

I didn't say meditation is useless

I am asking how do we know if thought is in movement or not. If so it's not meditation at all. Right? 

Meditation is the absence of any movement of the meditator. Right?

 

Edited May 15, 2018 by Faceless

[Arkandeus]

47 minutes ago, zoey101 said:

Okay, so I am trying to understand this lol but when you are meditating (sitting and breathing in silence) how are you "not thinking"? lol I tried it but couldn't help but jump from topic to topic in my head.

the more you meditate the more you are able to hear the silence of the inner being

a silence which will grow so loud your thoughts will seem like small pebbles in a sea, easy to ignore

its very normal that you're jumping from topic to topic, that is the beginning of meditation

I did as well so take it as a big sign of success , you're on the right road

learning to learn, the art of being a novice

Edited May 15, 2018 by Arkandeus

[cirkussmile]

1 minute ago, Faceless said:

Why can't wenlokm within without adding more to the content of mjnd/thought? 

I didn't say meditation is useless

I am asking how do we know if thought is in movement of not. If so it's not meditation at all.

My dear friend. You have a lot of information what meditation implies. "Seeing what is". 

So far I don't see what you are asking if non of the answers is valid to you. 

Have you tried techniques of meditation yourself? Vipassana for example.

[Faceless]

For me meditation is all day affair. There is no mediator or ”time” 

A constant movement of meditation. Never ends. This came about uninvited with the perception that time can only lead to more time. 

Once this is seen all movements of thought cease. 

All techniques, methods, and systems are movements of psychological time. Once these movements are initiated timelessness is pressed further and further away. 

This is a fact that one can see if they are really honest. 

But it has to bee seen actually for onesself. I can't convince anyone. 

A man/woman can not be convinced that they are caught in illusion. I think Allan watts said that. Not sure though. 

 

Edited May 15, 2018 by Faceless

[Faceless]

But this isn't about me. We are trying to see what meditation is not. 

We know that it is not a movement of time right?  

So let's see what movements prevent timelessness together 

[starsofclay]

 

1 hour ago, zoey101 said:

Okay, so I am trying to understand this lol but when you are meditating (sitting and breathing in silence) how are you "not thinking"? lol I tried it but couldn't help but jump from topic to topic in my head.

 @zoey101 I highly recommend "The Mind Illuminated" by John Yates... it will teach you so much about meditation and in fact help to answer your question. its on the google play bookstore, not sure about ITunes

Edited May 15, 2018 by starsofclay

[cetus]

 Alan Watts- The Art of Contemplation

All that needs to be experienced for enlightenment is already present, and anything in excess of this would be obstructive and redundant – like red ink on a rose. Otherwise, it is simply necessary to see that our usual "I" is a false and impotent image. But just as this phantom cannot actually will or do anything, it cannot get rid of itself. No tensing of muscles or, for that matter, deliberate relaxing of muscles, no repetitions of formulae, no self-suggestion, no exercises of imagination, no psychophysical regimens of any kind will do anything but add strength to the phantom. For, every littlest movement to change or to try not to change the way you actually feel now will be just one more of those futile muscular tensions (like trying to lift an airliner off the ground by straining at your seat-belt) which give semblance to the reality of the separated ego. You, considered as that ego, cannot get polar vision or cosmic consciousness. It might arise all of itself, as if by divine grace, but there is nothing, just nothing you can do or not do to bring it about. Yogis and Zen followers sometimes come to this point after long and heroic efforts.

At this point there is nothing to do except what is happening of itself. All that remains is the simple awareness of what is going on – trees outside, street sounds, clock ticking, sunlight on carpet, breathing, body feelings, talking to yourself in your head. Usual cosmic jazz. That's what there is, and every bit of it, including memories and recollections, is happening now. It comes out of nothing as sounds come out of silence, for it should be obvious that the universe has always started from now and left traces behind, like a pen as it writes, though the written record, the seeming past, is still and only now.

You, as ego, cannot change what you are feeling, and you cannot, effectively, try not to change it. There is simply and only what is happening, including those particular thoughts, images, and tensions which you customarily attributed to the phantom thinker and doer. They persist like echoes, but as it is seen that they are just static in the nervous system and not the work of any central ego, they lose interest, subside, and go away of themselves. Hoping that they will go away is just more static.

If this becomes clear, the effort to transform one's own mind should collapse, and along with it the whole illusion that one is a separate center of consciousness to which experience happens and for which these happenings are problematic. This collapse would then become the state of contemplation, the realization that all is One. I may understand this point theoretically, but still there seems to be no change, for which reason I look for some process whereby I can move from theoretical to immediate or intuitive understanding – not recognizing that this is still a subtle form of the absurd attempt to transform the transformer, arising from the illusory distinction of thinker and thought, experiencer and experience.

So long as this subtle confusion remains, one can be beguiled into various ways of trying to meditate, and a competent guru will suggest techniques so clever that their absurdity will be difficult to discover without resolute attempts to follow them through. Furthermore, the aspirations and minor successes of other seekers will compound a collective illusion, and even a mutual one-upmanship contest, of believing that this or that method or guru is, at last, the one that really works. Yet the intention of the guru himself is simply to exhaust the energy of the illusion by bringing his disciples again and again to experiences of the absurdity of trying to transform the mind with the mind.

As the Zen patriarch Seng-ts'an put it:   

The wise person does not strive
The ignorant man ties himself up…
If you work on your mind with your mind
How can you avoid an immense confusion?