Control thoughts or let 'em rip? While meditating.
 

Because I am well aware of what thoughts can do...where they can take me -
I am a firm believer in some sort of control over thoughts.
Sure, when they come in - laugh at them, push them aside, whatever - but to let them "go freely" for myself is a danger.

A thought could come in between my ears -" How are you going to pay for 'blank'?
'OMG, what I said at that party last week, I could shoot myself!'
'If 'so and so' isn't there tonight I'll freak.'
'God, I can't believe my father did that when I was 7!'

Sometimes a thought comes in that puts a smile in my heart - only to be pushed out by a 'bad' or useless thought...
(Well, not really anymore..)
Why not? because I practice thought control, modification for years.

But, there are those that believe we should be the observer and let 'em fly...
I am not talking about never thinking -
never letting the mind wonder about a creative project or never contemplating a verse or idea -
I'm speaking of sitting in meditation;
the place of stillness, still waters, no ripples on the surface, going past the Mind - to pure awareness - emptying your cup of thoughts to be filled with insights.

Comments?
And thanks.

Nearly there Miss Hepburn :smile:

may have benefited from being read as creatively project. Getting past the material or mundane into the realms fantastique.

I think suppressing feelings is underrated. :D

Ideally, you clear them but the only other options are suppressing them, distracting yourself or going postal.

And by going postal I might mean doing some exercise, being artistic etc.

Oh right this is the meditation forum.

Well I clear them but if you can't do that in a few mins without messing up your meditation, this is what I was advised: encapsulate the thought in a bubble and let it drift away. Repeat as necessary.

I would suggest not to do anything with them. Instead you could simply look at them and see them for what they are....thoughts.

Yes, that's right -just thoughts.

The more I don't give them importance the less they seem to come.
:smile:

And wrap them in a bubble...

For myself I find thinking instead of clearing my mind completely REALLY helped me take in alot of idea and understand and to 'be' them, rather then just knowing them.

I do not mean random thought about daily activites, but I sterr my mind toward spiritual topics and let it 'chew' through them.

This way I find my mind accepts them easier without accepting the knowledge then putting it in the garbage slot :0

I'm one of those :smile: The thing is... when why are trying to control thoughts it seems to work very well, during the meditation... then they come back. Again and again and again. And we get "carried away" by them when there is not enough prescence or in a stressful situation. "Control" is a word that is not really something to recomend in general but it also depends what we mean by control. Push away thoughts? Or gently guide them in another direction? I guess it works differently for everyone but I prefer to practice to be the Observer and in that way learn to detach from thoughts, not control them. There are some thoughts that have much more power, thoughts that are connected to deeply rooted beliefs. Learned responses, many years of programming. These are VERY difficult to control. There is automatic response in the body, the emotional stuff triggers more thoughts of the same kind and so on.

If you can see a thought you have the opportunity to realize that you are not that thought but separate from it.

It's like going into a candy store. You see the candy and your mouth starts to water you can already imagine how it's going to taste and you want it....but when you instead of eating it change the focus of your attention let's say onto a Horror show.....where did your desire for sweets go?

It is the focus of attention that gives power to creating your experience.

This is good! I have the same problem. Sometimes when I'm focused on my breathing, there is still some random thought drifting across my mind; a song being played, a memory, etc. Either way, my head never really becomes "clear".

I believe in giving them space.
Space to allow them to just pass or space to allow them to look within at their source or space to allow them to be a reminder to you.

James

Give it enough time and bingo- it happens when your awareness is on something other than thoughts and that itch...:smile:

This is what I call contemplation - a wonderful thing.
Different than meditation.
Different than prayer.
Different than worship.
Different than stillness in general.

Don't worry about your mind becoming clear or even about a thought arising....see it come and watch it go, don't judge it nor interact with it. Just say....there's a thought....and turn the focus of your attention back to what ever you are focusing on. Keep practicing : )

I say, during meditation, it would be best to observe the thought but not dwell on it and eventually it will drift away back into the silence. Sometimes when I'm trying to go to sleep I will try and silence my mind but trying isn't really the right word I try and allow the silence to come but before it does loads of thoughts come rushing out and I'm sort of in a detached mode where the silence and the thoughts are seperate from each other and I'm amazed at all of these thoughts coming out of me as if they were foreign to me.

Matt

I don't think it matters if some thoughts come and go, and as long as they do not distract you from awareness of breath.

how do you observe the breathing?

Or, you can meditate on that thought, look at it from different angles, from the outside of you looking at the situation. Maybe it is something that needs to be worked on. That is why we are here in this body, to experience situations and deal with them, it is normal, as long as you feel better when you are finished meditating, you did something right.. :)

I think it depends on the kind of meditation you are doing. If you are doing a meditation aimed at developing a particular state, such as compassion, then you want to control thoughts to bring everything to the state of compassion. If you are doing intense concentration on the breath, you want to control thoughts so they do not distract from the concentration on the breath.

However if you are doing awareness (mindfulness, Zen, etc) meditation, where you are simply watching the contents of mind, then you can let the thoughts rip. You watch them come and go and the aim is to maintain awareness in the midst of all the ripping thoughts.

8 years ago and this thread on thoughts is still pertinent.

An oldie but certainly a goodie! :biggrin:

This is the first real meditation instruction I followed. Prior to that I was basically putting myself into a mild hypnotic trance.

https://www.vipassanaforum.net/meditation/Shamatha.pdf

"Notes: Do not try to suppress them yet do not follow them. Let them arise and fall like waves coming up on the beach and flowing back into the sea. Artificially forcing quiet on your mind is another form of fabrication."

Excellent. :smile:

I don't force them away - I just inwardly roll my eyes at them like a fly buzzing.
Useless things when meditating.

I like Vipassana/Calm Abiding (or any mindfulness technique) for concentrating and stilling mind. Noting and gently letting go of all the forms that might arise.

I like open meditation (resting in awareness/choiceless awareness/do-nothing meditation) because it reveals the place where the observer in the above technique is also but a form that can be noted and gently let go. :wink:

That's inaccurate. Poorly worded. It's more like the "work is no work' technique of Karma Yoga and this occurred to me because I have been mixing in more of that practice into my routine. It's not 'noting' and definitely not 'letting go'. It's witnessing the observer. The shift in consciousness/identity and viscerally, not conceptually.

It also occurs to me how these practices are mutually reinforcing. You are the Witness through knowledge (Jnana), meditation (Raja) and action (Karma). I'm still trying to determine a way to get devotion (Bhakti) into the mix, but that seems to be my weakest suit. I suppose I can "fake it until I make it" but that's just never been my style. It just doesn't feel right.

Let's talk about this. :tongue: Because I play a therapist online*.

-What would it mean to you to be devoted?
-What is your idea of devotion?
-What do you imagine yourself being devoted to?
-What do you think devotion feels like?

You can think on these things for yourself only, write out your thoughts or get back to me/us -
cuz your process will help others. :thumbsup:


* Been in therapy, 90% of my friends are therapists ...helped two friends study for their State Licensing Exams
for Clinical Social Work - diff states different decades.
Lived for 24 yrs total in 2 relationships WITH therapists, lol!!! :biggrin:
Hahahaha, it's like a curse.

Well! Pretty darned brave of you to dare look into the innards of my mind. LOL!

Here goes, but I did issue the above trigger warning. :biggrin:

What I mean by 'It just doesn't feel right" was in reference to "fake it until I make it" and is more about formal devotional practices surrounding a personal God. I've never been big on that, even though I went through 12 years of Catholic school. I'm just not big on that kind of ritualistic worship.

I have been mixing in a devotional aspect of Karma Yoga. That is being conscious all my actions interacting in and with the world are interactions with manifestations of Brahman and I do so in service to That, not purely my own self-interest. Of course since I'm (mind-body) also a manifestation it's kind of circular in an odd way so this is done within the constraints of ethics, morals and compassion, meaning it's not total and absolute selflessness. Another aspect of how I frame it is this mind-body is a vehicle for Brahman to experience Itself as are other mind-bodies. So I am serving that purpose of Maya, but this is devotion to the abstract and unknowable but in one way of thinking it's serving the very purpose of existence because it's done so consciously.

When I was in the intense wow phase this was palpable. I was reveling in the experience of myself, if that makes sense. I was giddy. It's a synergistic and vicarious relationship. LOL!

I've also practiced loving-kindness and compassion meditation, but never regularly and not for some time. I suppose I could pick that practice back up or maybe even better add in a meditation on a personal God. For the latter that would be Jesus because I can easily have a recognizable "face" in my mind's eye, it's in my background and I do believe Jesus the man was a non-dualist at heart. Pretty good fit!

It's interesting. There's a ying and yang aspect to all this. That is Jnana is mind-based and Bhakti is heart-based. Raja is introverted and Karma is extroverted, and even within Karma Yoga there are techniques that are Jnana-based and Bhakti-based. So my approach is to have them all in the mix, but some practices will get more weight than others due to personality.

Re: -What would it mean to you to be devoted?
-What is your idea of devotion?
-What do you imagine yourself being devoted to?
-What do you think devotion feels like?

These are the highlights from what you wrote...pertaining to the questions

I will look at this with coffee in the morning. :icon_cool:
Had to pare it down first.
But, ---Do you think of God as abstract and unknowable ---just wondering?
You didn't say that, but am asking. If God is real to you --'a personal God'...how would you be devoted to a human - spouse, mom or, say, a job?
Just something to think on. Ha, or comment on at 4 am.
Also, would you agree devotion is giving attention to something; a form of love?

Anyhoo, I'll be back. We ran out of time....that's a therapy joke.:tongue:

Words, words, words, it's all words. LOL!

Brahman, Source, Unity, Oneness, Unified Field, Ultimate Reality - The ultimate abstraction.
God, Allah, Jehova, etc... - A personal God. A manifestation of the above for the mind to wrap around.

How would I be devoted? Attention, a form of love? How do I love Thee? Let me count the ways... https://poets.org/poem/how-do-i-love-thee-sonnet-43

That in fact might be the answer and why I'm thinking for me, and since I'm a very informal kind of guy, Karma Yoga might be the way. A worship of life and existence itself.

I love it. :smile:
I think I'm going to take this to a PM. I love that poem.
Back atcha in a bit. Basically, just wanna talk to you like the books: "Devotion for Dummies" or ''Devotion Made Easy" ! :D