What Determines Our Thought

[Progress]

So I've been noticing(Intuitively although before that logically) that thoughts just appear out of thin air. What determines the thoughts? Are there ways to manipulate it?

[Natasha]

 

 

[Natasha]

 

 

[Leo Gura]

The entire universe's collective functioning.

[Truth]

Leo talks about it as an emergent phenomena of all of these 70 trillion cells in our body, this is where the deep illusion of self comes from, the emergent phenomena is the output of these 70 trillion cells. "You" are part of the collective of everything. Not separated from it. It feels it comes out of know where because the illusion of self creates this separation.

[FindingPeace]

I think thoughts have a lot to do with conscious-awareness as it is this that actually observes them. Otherwise there is just brain activity with no observer or interpreter.

I observe my thoughts when I meditate and have noticed how they generally provide commentaries on the the present moment, or reflections/recreations of past situations or concepts as well as simulations of future situations. So it seems to me that thoughts are about 'preparation' and reasoning out courses of actions and consequences. This process seems to occur continuously.

There doesn't seem to be any way to control or influence the thoughts, however the one thing we do have control over, to a point, is our focus and attention. Although this comes with practice, which comes from meditation. I find that by consciously focussing my attention on, say, the present moment (sensory inputs) then my conscious-awareness observs that and not the thought stream. However the thought stream has an annoying habit of sneakily taking back your attention and awareness. So once I become conscious of this I re-focus my attention back on the present moment. For those short periods where I am focussed on the outside world I am not aware of the thought stream.

To me the goal of meditation is to become better at maintaining attention on external stimuli rather then internal thought-stories thereby reducing monkey-mind.

But to answer your question "What determines our thoughts", it would seem that they are a manifestion of the general brain activity, which itself is a manifestation of the current state of the body and the surrounding environment as well as the preceding states.

 

[99th_monkey]

Programming

[Hillary Kapan]

Great and central topic!  Thanks.  I've been watching my thoughts for decades and don't have an answer.  However, thoughts are clearly conditioned by language.  As we learn, we also learn meanings of words which signify things, concepts, processes, and so on.  We can, if we want, think of thoughts as flows of meaning, from one to the next rutabaga.  In that sentence, 'rutabaga' did not fit the meaning-flow signified by the prior words.  Once meanings of words are learned, the meanings can be used without replaying the sounds of words in the head.  Why will a given thought happen?  I have no general notion, yet often, for myself, a sight, sound, taste, or other input will trigger an association.  Seeing a peach in a grocery store may remind me of wonderful peaches I once had in Utah.  Then, the combo, {peaches} and {Utah} combine to trigger the idea {those peaches are no longer available} then my mind may follow a string of further associations.  How does it work for you?