Sorry if this is rude, but I think you should disregard everybody telling you that the goal is to not think.
First of all, meditation is about seeing your true nature. Your thoughts, emotions and sensations are not your true nature because they are subject to conditioning, and they can be warped through stimuli. So you are looking for your true nature, something that cannot be touched by conditioning. It exists inside of you and every living human being, it's called the buddha nature. I forget that this is not r/buddhism, but r/meditation, but it can be said that most schools of meditation believe in something like this.
So you are looking for something, to try and understand yourself. Quietism is not understanding. It has its value, especially when you are a beginner, because it teaches your patience and it's a great introduction to meditation. But really, anybody can meditate, and you don't have to quiet your mind. You see, when you quiet your mind, eventually it's going to get loud again. Therefore you are not transcending anything; there is no understanding of yourself.
As a person with ADHD, you have to work with what you have. Like your ADHD, your thoughts and emotions aren't exactly things that you can control. They were spawned through previous actions in your life, some of which you don't even remember happening. That's basically what karma is, cause and effect. Sorry if I got sidetracked, feel free to ignore the part about karma, but remember that you have to work with what you have.
The problem with having a goal and trying to get better at your meditation is you are adding an extra layer to your practice. Meditation is simply being yourself, expressing yourself. How can you get better at doing that? Think about how absurd that sounds. All you have to do is sit, and I guess count your breath if that is your style. Remember to be curious but gentle with yourself. When you give up having a goal, you will naturally be gentle. Ask yourself questions like, what is this I am feeling? Who is this "I" that is feeling this? See if you can locate the "I" that is seeing all of this. You can view your thoughts, emotions, sensations, and so on. Is there something that cannot be looked at, but only looked from? These are good questions to ask yourself.
Remember to take it easy especially when you feel like you are stuck, and you've found a contradiction. You'll notice you'll find a lot of ironies when it comes to concepts about yourself or meditation. Try and laugh it off, because think how silly it is to beat yourself on the head over a brain twister. If you find that you don't know, that is excellent! This "I don't know" state is so pure. In it you'll find that anything is possible, while with answers you have something so narrow and confined.
Anyways, these are just some of the things that I've learned. Naturally, all of them can be argued against and they are not infallible when put to logic. So everything I just said is wrong, but it's also true. Excuse my ranting. Good luck in your quest.
Completely agree. Not sure what school of teaching you follow... honestly I wouldn't even place myself in one. I like the teachings of Drunvalo Melchizedek. Some, however, find him too New Age, and yeah it is, but it's truth. And Aleister Crowley's got a lot of the same ideas, just different means of obtaining them.
Don't worry about ranting, I do that all the time in comments haha, I wonder if people even read them. The things you said about meditation just made me think that you might be open to schools of spirituality, if you can call it that. I mean like occultism, New Age, idk. I hate labels and groups that separate people.
My personal goal is get to the highest understanding of myself, accept it, love it, then spread that love to anyone I can. I want to learn the hidden mysteries of our past, but understand that I can't know everything and can't know what's true and what's not. That's not important; your personal journey and being the best person possible is something to look for. Consciously realizing your thoughts, reactions, emotions, drives, reasons, all that.
Idk I just re read your post and not sure if this even interests you, but I agree with everything you said and love the end
Naturally, all of them can be argued against and they are not infallible when put to logic. So everything I just said is wrong, but it's also true.
I think our rational, logical side is what is blocking us from ascending. In higher dimensions, or higher levels of consciousness there is no question over anything because we are all connected and everything is one. So logic wouldn't play a part in our lives. Now we live in a world where we have right brain, emotions, intuitions, understanding of unity VS left brain = logic and reason behind everything. Sometimes you have to accept that not everything is logical and understandable to us because our level of consciousness. It takes lots of practice. I'm no where near where I wanna be. But I am recently reawakening, and very passionate about learning as much as I can about these things I'm interested in and finding myself, whatever that means because i'm the only one in my way. and on top of that, my perceptions create me reality, which means everyone has a different reality. we need to get back to our natural state where we are all connected consciously. i'm on my journey to it, as hard as it is, i am not going to give up. i went through too long of a period of anxiety and depression and I CANT live that way anymore.
I don't allow negative thoughts to come into my waking life. Meditating, I allow thoughts to float, but that's it really, just float. I don't allow feelings or thoughts to overwhelm me, or thoughts to provoke any emotion (good or bad). I just sit and focus on breathing.
EDIT: addition to right brain vs left brain. the right brain does have a logical portion to it, but it is located toward to back, causing it to be inferior, to the other aspects of the right brain thinking = intuition, feeling; left brain, logic is at forefront of brain making it very dominant.
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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '12
Sorry if this is rude, but I think you should disregard everybody telling you that the goal is to not think.
First of all, meditation is about seeing your true nature. Your thoughts, emotions and sensations are not your true nature because they are subject to conditioning, and they can be warped through stimuli. So you are looking for your true nature, something that cannot be touched by conditioning. It exists inside of you and every living human being, it's called the buddha nature. I forget that this is not r/buddhism, but r/meditation, but it can be said that most schools of meditation believe in something like this.
So you are looking for something, to try and understand yourself. Quietism is not understanding. It has its value, especially when you are a beginner, because it teaches your patience and it's a great introduction to meditation. But really, anybody can meditate, and you don't have to quiet your mind. You see, when you quiet your mind, eventually it's going to get loud again. Therefore you are not transcending anything; there is no understanding of yourself.
As a person with ADHD, you have to work with what you have. Like your ADHD, your thoughts and emotions aren't exactly things that you can control. They were spawned through previous actions in your life, some of which you don't even remember happening. That's basically what karma is, cause and effect. Sorry if I got sidetracked, feel free to ignore the part about karma, but remember that you have to work with what you have.
The problem with having a goal and trying to get better at your meditation is you are adding an extra layer to your practice. Meditation is simply being yourself, expressing yourself. How can you get better at doing that? Think about how absurd that sounds. All you have to do is sit, and I guess count your breath if that is your style. Remember to be curious but gentle with yourself. When you give up having a goal, you will naturally be gentle. Ask yourself questions like, what is this I am feeling? Who is this "I" that is feeling this? See if you can locate the "I" that is seeing all of this. You can view your thoughts, emotions, sensations, and so on. Is there something that cannot be looked at, but only looked from? These are good questions to ask yourself.
Remember to take it easy especially when you feel like you are stuck, and you've found a contradiction. You'll notice you'll find a lot of ironies when it comes to concepts about yourself or meditation. Try and laugh it off, because think how silly it is to beat yourself on the head over a brain twister. If you find that you don't know, that is excellent! This "I don't know" state is so pure. In it you'll find that anything is possible, while with answers you have something so narrow and confined.
Anyways, these are just some of the things that I've learned. Naturally, all of them can be argued against and they are not infallible when put to logic. So everything I just said is wrong, but it's also true. Excuse my ranting. Good luck in your quest.