Mindfulness Stops Creative Insights?

[SimpleGuy]

I often hear from you guys to be mindful, to be in the moment. But when I`m mindful and don`t have any thoughts, it means I cut off myself from insights and useful thoughts that could help me somehow in life.

So is it better to yearn to be thoughtless, mindful or just do your meditation and you`re free and having your insights throughout the day? 

[Carl-Richard]

It's exactly when your mind takes a break from the usual slop of self-absorbed worries and cultural indoctrination that creative thoughts have the space to arise. So no, on the contrary. Of course during the meditation you might shift your focus away from creative thoughts that may arise, but in the moments after the meditation and just in general, your creativity will be elevated. Generally switching your activities up, especially just taking a break and for example going for a walk and letting your mind wander in between work, brings creativity. Your frames are broken and your mind is opened to a new set of possibilities.

When you're doing a task and focusing on something, you construct a limited a number of frames that you find relevant to work with, but they're limited. When you switch focus, you break frame, and new perspectives, new thoughts may arise.

Edited Wednesday at 09:24 PM by Carl-Richard

[SimpleGuy]

16 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

It's exactly when your mind takes a break from the usual slop of self-absorbed worries and cultural indoctrination that creative thoughts have the space to arise. So no, on the contrary. Of course during the meditation you might shift your focus away from creative thoughts that may arise, but in the moments after the meditation and just in general, your creativity will be elevated. Generally switching your activities up, especially just taking a break and for example going for a walk and letting your mind wander in between work, brings creativity. Your frames are broken and your mind is opened to a new set of possibilities.

When you're doing a task and focusing on something, you construct a limited a number of frames that you find relevant to work with, but they're limited. When you switch focus, you break frame, and new perspectives, new thoughts may arise.

Thank you, bro. I also heard Rick Rubin say something like if you change your aperture (perspective, simply speaking) you can gain a lot of creativity. Like from going focused on one specific project with strict rules and boundaries then going from that to free-flowing project where you can do anything you want without rules. You know, smth like that also helps.

But I didn`t really get the point. I had question: "So is it better to yearn to be thoughtless, mindful or just do your meditation and you`re free and having your insights throughout the day?" So which is it? 

Edited yesterday at 01:30 PM by SimpleGuy
because I want so

[Thought Art]

@SimpleGuy Mindfulness isn’t about stopping thoughts. It’s essentially meta-cognition or meta awareness. Mindfulness really should help creativity. 

[SimpleGuy]

11 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

@SimpleGuy Mindfulness isn’t about stopping thoughts. It’s essentially meta-cognition or meta awareness. Mindfulness really should help creativity. 

Usually when I`m aware/mindful I don`t have thoughts at all.

[Carl-Richard]

9 hours ago, SimpleGuy said:

But I didn`t really get the point. I had question: "So is it better to yearn to be thoughtless, mindful or just do your meditation and you`re free and having your insights throughout the day?" So which is it? 

If your meditation technique involves for example focusing on a sensation (e.g. the breath), then you should do that during the meditation. Then during the day you should use your mind as it is required. If it happens to be silent, then let it be silent. If it happens to be creative and thinking thoughts, let it do that. I did the mistake back in the day of trying to remain without thoughts 24/7 every waking moment. It made me into a dissociated, dissociable rock-like person.

There may be times where it can be useful to bring your practice of thoughtlessness into various daily activities, for example doing active mindfulness practice (e.g. really immersing yourself in the sensations while for example cooking or working out or just lifting objects). But I would then be wary of giving yourself at least some breaks, if not most of the time. Don't make the mistake of turning yourself into a rock and chopping off every train of thought as it occurs as some form of compulsion. Let your mind grow like a tree most of the day. It's more beautiful and natural that way.

When identification lessens as your practice deepens, you won't necessarily think less thoughts, but less negative, spiraling, counterproductive thoughts. Your thoughts will become more meaningful, and more subtle, and more bullet-like in their speed and precision, almost to where you don't even register them as thoughts anymore, but your mind is still producing immense intelligence and beauty. That is what enlightenment is about; not amputating your faculties but letting them spring into full fruition. And in-between those moments of beauty, deep silence may arise.

So I suggest keep on meditating, keep on inquiring into thoughtlessness, but give yourself space to just be, without compulsion, without needing things to be one way or another.

Edited 21 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[SimpleGuy]

@Carl-Richard Thank you. Now you drove point to the home!

19 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

but give yourself space to just be, without compulsion, without needing things to be one way or another.

By the way I`m interested why should I do this? What`s in it for me?))

[Carl-Richard]

33 minutes ago, SimpleGuy said:

By the way I`m interested why should I do this? What`s in it for me?))

Because do you think an enlightened person spends 24 hours a day obsessing about spiritual practice and "staying present" and trying to not be caught by thoughts? No. They are relaxed, living their life.

If you want the rest of your life to be filled with obsessive thinking about a state you're wishing was the case, clinging to it, rather than trusting it, letting go and giving yourself time for the state to flower naturally in a state of rest, by all means, do that. But that won't be enlightenment. Enlightenment is when your baseline state, your default state, the state where you do not aim to achieve anything or wish to change anything, is presence. So giving yourself time to rest allows the enlightened state to flower.

That said, moments of intense obsession can be useful for breaking through plateaus and cultivating the state that you want to flower in your baseline, but at the end of the day, you want the baseline to become that state, so sometimes let the baseline be the baseline. Or just drive the obsession to the maximum extent and see how it eventually leads to a glass ceiling that can only be broken by letting go of the practice.

That said, there is nothing in it for you in enlightenment anyway (and that's not just a funny joke; it's literally the case). So if you just want an intermediate thing of less thoughts, more meaningful thoughts, a relatively more profound level of existence, then just meditate and do whatever you want (which is not that dissimilar from proper spiritual practice anyway). And even then, give yourself time to rest, because a mind that doesn't rest or constantly tries to suppress its own activity becomes a constipated and stunted mind.

Edited 1 hour ago by Carl-Richard

[UnbornTao]

I'd challenge the notion that enlightenment is a state or depends on one. A state is a state, and you move through countless states all the time.

While we're at it, annihilate or discard any notion you hold about this matter. By necessity, any notion always misses the mark. It's BS, even if the definition is conceptually valid or accurate to a degree. 

Edited 44 minutes ago by UnbornTao