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thoughts and thinking

upekkaupekka Veteran
edited March 2010 in Philosophy
what is the difference between thought and thinking?

should we stop thoughts?

can we stop thoughts?

why do the thoughts come in the first place?

Comments

  • DhammaDhatuDhammaDhatu Veteran
    edited March 2010
    volitional v non-volitional

    yes, when necessary

    yes

    mostly ignorance, sometimes wisdom

    :)
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    edited March 2010
    upekka wrote: »
    what is the difference between thought
    Noun
    and thinking?
    verb.
    should we stop thoughts?
    It depends whether they need stopping.
    can we stop thoughts?
    Yes.... but again the question arises... why should we?
    why do the thoughts come in the first place?
    Because that's what we're designed to do.....
    Thinking is not entirely negative.
    And if thoughts are beneficial, positive & constructive, they should be encouraged, not suppressed.
  • DairyLamaDairyLama Veteran Veteran
    edited March 2010
    upekka wrote: »
    should we stop thoughts?

    can we stop thoughts?

    Thoughts are nothing but trouble and should be erradicated entirely.:lol:

    P
  • RichardHRichardH Veteran
    edited March 2010
    Thoughts just come and go of their own accord. If we are lost in their symbolic content without knowing them as simple phenomena, they will proliferate. "No Thought" (Zen) doesn't mean having no thought, it just means that thoughts are known a occurring and are not unconsciously absorbed in. They still arise but do not proliferate.
    JaySon
  • upekkaupekka Veteran
    edited March 2010

    thoughts are known a occurring and are not unconsciously absorbed in. They still arise but do not proliferate.

    in other words because there is no ignorance and there is no paticca samuppada

    thoughts come and go :)

    there is no thinking on thoughts so there is no living in the past or planning to live in the future :)

    mindfulness of the present moment :)

    WOW!!!

    Wisdom Omnipresent Wisdom !!!
  • after six years of reading, practising Buddha's Teaching and thinking of 'thought and thinking', i come to the following conclusion:

    'thoughts' include the past knowledge, reading, listening, thinking itself and there is no future resultant kamma invove
    'thinking' is thinking on 'thoughts' and thinking is kamma creation for future resultant kamma

    what do you say?

    Shoshin
  • FosdickFosdick in its eye are mirrored far off mountains Alaska, USA Veteran

    Does the Buddha have thoughts?

  • we all (Buddha, Arahants and all worldlings) have thoughts

    we worldlings think on thoughts and talk and do accordingly

    Buddahs and Arahnts do not think on thougts, they do not plan on thoughts

  • I would say there is a lot of truth in what you say.

    However it is a little more complex. Karma is more than thoughts. It is also the body and its circumstances. Have we for example 'thought ourself' into a karma free situation and body?

    Are we free of the memes and cultural thoughts and influences of others?

  • KundoKundo Sydney, Australia Veteran

    @lobster said:
    I would say there is a lot of truth in what you say.

    However it is a little more complex. Karma is more than thoughts. It is also the body and its circumstances.

    :+1:

  • NirvanaNirvana aka BUBBA   `     `   South Carolina, USA Veteran

    "Thoughts" and "Thinking," no matter what some moderator said six years ago are both Nouns. But grammar really is quite beside the point here.

    (1) what is the difference between thought and thinking?

    1) Thought is the object thought about and, thinking is the subjective indulgence we thinking beings partake of in concerning such objects and our relationship to them. But neither thoughts nor our thinking could reasonably be construed as products either of one or the other. A thought can be said to be complete when it is entirely past-tense. But "thinking" itself can never be relegated entirely to the past, or if it is so relegated, then it crosses a semantic hurdle and is then called "Thought." Indeed, the very word "thought" is preterite and past participle. A thought, therefore, is like a snapshot; whereas "thinking" is a living, changing organism, as it were.

    It is enough for our thoughts to be worthy and kind and for our thinking to be unclouded, open, and desiring of the welfare of all.

  • can thoughts and thinking happen without words (language)?

  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    Yes. Imagery. I can visualise scenes without having any commentary.

  • Emotions are also considered 'thoughts' by some Buddhists, also abstract concepts are thought of by mathematicians, physicists, philosophers. Music can certainly be thought of as wordless.

    JaySon
  • DairyLamaDairyLama Veteran Veteran

    @upekka said:
    can thoughts and thinking happen without words (language)?

    Clearly thoughts are not the only thing going on in the mind, there are emotions, images, all kinds of stuff. When the mind is really quiet you can get a better sense of this.

    lobster
  • Steve_BSteve_B Veteran
    edited December 2016

    @Nirvana said:
    "Thoughts" and "Thinking," no matter what some moderator said six years ago are both Nouns. But grammar really is quite beside the point here.

    (1) what is the difference between thought and thinking?

    Both can be nouns, both can be verbs.
    "I'm thinking of something blue."
    Thinking is a verb.

    "The thinking was that . . . "
    Thinking is a noun.
    (Thinking is also a noun in the sentence "Thinking is a verb.")

    "I thought about it."
    Thought is a verb.

    "Here's a thought."
    Thought is a noun.

    It's interesting, and I think surprising, that we don't have very many words to choose from here, and the words we do have are ambiguous. Makes it tricky to precisely express our thoughts. Or our thinking.

    Shoshin
  • ShoshinShoshin No one in particular Nowhere Special Veteran

    That's very thoughtful of you @Steve_B :)

    JaySonSteve_B
  • JaySonJaySon Florida Veteran

    @upekka said:
    can we stop thoughts?

    Move your awareness from your head to your heart. Try to hold your awareness there. Practice keeping your awareness there instead of at your head. That should help not think so much.

    Here's the thing... I don't believe you can force your thinking to stop. But when your subconscious mind clearly sees that there's greater joy in having less thoughts, then it will happen naturally.

  • @federica said:
    Yes. Imagery. I can visualise scenes without having any commentary.

    @SpinyNorman said:

    @upekka said:
    can thoughts and thinking happen without words (language)?

    Clearly thoughts are not the only thing going on in the mind, there are emotions, images, all kinds of stuff. When the mind is really quiet you can get a better sense of this.

    i found, at a subtle level even images and emotions, and anything comes within has something to do with words and our attachment to those words make us react

  • DavidDavid A human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First Nations Veteran

    We can pay more attention to the space between our thoughts than the thoughts themselves and expand those spaces.

    Any thoughts that come in words have spaces between them.

    upekkaJaySonKannon
  • @David said:
    We can pay more attention to the space between our thoughts than the thoughts themselves and expand those spaces.

    Any thoughts that come in words have spaces between them.

    True @David, that is what i have been trying

  • pegembarapegembara Veteran
    edited January 2017

    No thinker without thoughts. No thinker even with thoughts.

    Do we know what our next thought will be? If not, how could we be their owner?
    If we are not thoughts, then what are we?

    Who would you be without the thought?
    What happens, when you believe that thought?
    B. Katie

    PS.
    Just thinking aloud about thoughts and thinking.

    JaySon
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    @pegembara said:
    No thinker without thoughts. No thinker even with thoughts.

    Do we know what our next thought will be? If not, how could we be their owner?
    If we are not thoughts, then what are we?

    Who would you be without the thought?
    What happens, when you believe that thought?
    B. Katie

    PS.
    Just thinking aloud about thoughts and thinking.

    I think it's what they call Papanca.

  • ShoshinShoshin No one in particular Nowhere Special Veteran

    thoughts and thinking

    Thought itself is the thinker, it hooks one line and sinker.
    there's no time to think -before one starts to lip sync

  • @David said:
    We can pay more attention to the space between our thoughts than the thoughts themselves and expand those spaces.

    Any thoughts that come in words have spaces between them.

    true, there are spaces in between 'a thought/word'

    we attached to 'a thought/word' because of our ignorance
    we don't know 'a thought/word' came to an empty space

    so we start to build with our thinking bricks and the whole building of 'thinking and thoughts' is an illusion

    form is emptiness
    emptiness is form

    David
  • DavidDavid A human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First Nations Veteran
    edited January 2017

    I wish I could remember what it was like to think before I knew words.

    Oh well. That's a pitfall of being in the information sharing game. Eventually someone decides to label junk out of convenience and it turns to necessity just like all conveniences do.

    upekka
  • DairyLamaDairyLama Veteran Veteran

    @upekka said:

    @federica said:
    Yes. Imagery. I can visualise scenes without having any commentary.

    @SpinyNorman said:

    @upekka said:
    can thoughts and thinking happen without words (language)?

    Clearly thoughts are not the only thing going on in the mind, there are emotions, images, all kinds of stuff. When the mind is really quiet you can get a better sense of this.

    i found, at a subtle level even images and emotions, and anything comes within has something to do with words and our attachment to those words make us react.

    Yes, it's as if giving something a name/label objectifies it, makes it more real somehow...of perhaps it is more about differentiating one thing from another?

  • .

  • I have trouble with papanca. Before I know it I am washed out to sea, floundering for shore (remind self:swim parallet to shore). Thanissao Bhikkhu says there is a moment we often don't catch where we say,'I'm going to check out that thought!' And that little noticed intention suddenly finds our mind's attention on another continent. Or if the process cascades, into a full/blown papanca panicky mindstorm. Only thing that work is to regulate and calm the breathing. Otherwise, my mind presents a loud bill of goods of everything wrong with my circumstances and station in life and starts roaming thtu the past in search of yet more bad evidence of not measuring up. Papancapalooza. No fun. How do others cope with runsway thought?

  • silversilver In the beginning there was nothing, and then it exploded. USA, Left coast. Veteran

    @Dhammika says, "No fun. How do others cope with runsway thought?"

    Boy, do I need some tricks of the trade for that. I think in pictures a lot, so I use that imagination and put it to good use. I do my best to immediately pop a picture into my thoughts that will cue me to stop them. E.g., my thoughts are a smallish dog on one of those modern leashes and click the button to bring the dog back to me, and therefore control my wandering thoughts.

    lobster
  • Funny, @silver. Thannissaro Bhikkhu uses a similar image somewhere in which he describes walking a dog on a very long leash and the thing getting tangled on light posts, bushes, hydrants and whatnot and us having to go and untangle the leash. The dog being our attention, of course.

  • ZenshinZenshin Veteran East Midlands UK Veteran

    Personally @Dhammika I used to suffer a lot with papanca - I just kept practicing and it settled down, patiently and gently returning to the breath every time I got lost.

    lobsterDhammika
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