Purposely practicing not thinking

[Sleeper]

Hey all, new and newbie here.

Here’s a question about not thinking: Does anyone practice it? not thinking? I dont mean getting to that state through meditation, rather the action of blanking your mind for as long as you can and then starting over once you've failed. 

Is it a real practice? does it have a name? Is it a waste of time? haha. 

Anyways, thanks for reading and hopefully replying.

[Moksha]

Hello @Sleeper and welcome to the forum. For me, it is less about fighting thoughts, and more about recognizing thoughts for what they are. The power is in being vigilant, just enough, not to identify with your thoughts. You are the Watcher. Don't become so engrossed in the movie that you forget who you are. I promise you, the thoughts are only a distraction, and will inevitably disappoint.

[Bodhitree]

I’ve tried this for a long time, when I was younger. While you can get the mind to be “quiet”, generally you are only fooling yourself if you think that you’re not thinking. Thoughts tend to come in this state only when you want them to, which means you don’t have as much trouble with getting distracted. The mind is sneaky and it goes underground, you find yourself thinking without consciously thinking, if that makes sense. 
It can actually get you into some odd states of mind and some of the mechanisms which govern our spirit become visible. We are not really one self but multiple selves, you will eventually realise. 
 

I am not sure if it is ultimately useful. For enlightenment and inner freedom I have found it more useful to study and practice  spirituality. 

[abrakamowse]

@Bodhitree It makes a lot of sense to me... 

[Nahm]

13 hours ago, Sleeper said:

Hey all, new and newbie here.

Here’s a question about not thinking: Does anyone practice it? not thinking? I dont mean getting to that state through meditation, rather the action of blanking your mind for as long as you can and then starting over once you've failed. 

Is it a real practice? does it have a name? Is it a waste of time? haha. 

Anyways, thanks for reading and hopefully replying.

There’s no thinker thinking, nor a thinker not thinking, only the thought that there is. Likewise, and perhaps relevant, there is no ‘succeeder’ or ‘one who succeeds’, nor a ‘failer’, or ‘one who fails’. Likewise there is no one which starts over. (All just thoughts.) 

A self referential thought is a thought which is about what is aware of thoughts, which can never actually be thought. (Also just thoughts). 

Thoughts are ‘things’. 

The Enlightened One is No Thing. 

 

Awareness Of Thoughts Meditation

[seeking_brilliance]

Definitely worth a try. Just don't expect to get anywhere with it. ?

I got a little good at it because when I was younger I would obsessively repeat a sentence over and over in my head. Changing up words a little, or with different emphasis on different words. It's a writer thing but it would be a non stop narrating of my own life and extremely annoying. So I learned to blank it out. But never have I ever achieved blanking out thought completely. 

[Breakingthewall]

I have the feeling that all thought is a form of anxiety. it is a mechanism of separation, of division between "you" and "not you", a way to limit yourself, to define yourself as a separate individual.   and I say anxiety because you are not really a separate individual, you are creating that fiction with constant thought, so there is great anxiety, you perceive that everything is about to be destroyed, it is fragile, it has to be maintained with constant work, work to think, to divide. I think that if anxiety is zero, thought will be zero. not necessary at all. if you dive into reality and dissolve in it, you stop being an individual, you merge with the whole and rest in non-thought, in the true present. to try by force is to start a house from the roof. It is violence and I would say that it is useless. non-thought has to come naturally, when there is no more I

Edited January 20, 2021 by Breakingthewall