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Does meditation help you think straight?
lobster
Crusty Veteran
in Meditation
One of my hobbies is thinking sideways and finding alternative modes of being. Meditation helps us think straight . . . or do we just find ourselves more open?
What do you think? [not a trick question]
What do you think? [not a trick question]
1
Comments
I agree with @Omar067. For me, meditation is more about cultivating a deeper awareness of our "selves" and our reactions to things around us. It doesn't tell us what is right/wrong, but it helps us see right, wrong, and the grey areas in between.
Is thinking straight and linear not our goal? Should we rather be flexible and able to change our hard won and certain opinions?
In a sense is 'right thought', not something static?
Does meditation help you think straight? Not really. There are plenty of crooks and miserable people who sometimes use meditation itself to scam people, often with the best of intentions. Never once has someone said, "You know, I started off taking your money by convincing you I'm the Great Enlightened Master but after all that meditation I see that's just wrong. Here's your money back."
As for open...open to what? New ideas? New ways of thinking? Couldn't prove it by the way many monks and temples and meditating people have acted over the centuries. A lifetime of meditation makes you very, very good at meditating, that's all. The same can be said for anything you practice at for endless hours. And this is from someone like myself who follows a Zen meditation practice over the years.
Whatever mind you sit down with, that's the same mind you stand back up with and carry with you through the day. Meditation is only a tool in our effort to do something with this mind. Like a hammer, you can pound away at all the nails you want but unless you put effort into building something, all you do is end up with a lot of bent nails and a satisfied feeling because of all the work you think happened.
Lay Buddhists fret waaaaay too much over formal, sitting meditation. Again, JMO.
I think people "fret" over it because it's a central part of their practice. They want to know that they're not "wasting their time" and that they're "doing it right."
Of course, these are all problematic ways to approach meditation, but they come up with anyone who seriously gets into the practice.
You can tell you are only conceptual about this topic by whether you say "got that... what's next?" whereas you could be amazed and in a state of wonderment.
Sideways may involve lateral thinking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateral_thinking
Straight may involve clarity or non delusional, rather than logical . . .
http://buddhaspace.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/e-book-review-intuitive-awareness-by.html
That said, I'm not so sure thinking "straight" is an ideal goal for me. I do (seem) to see things more clearly when I meditate regularly and practice mindfulness. I have a slightly easier time seeing things more as they are and less with my perception and story put over it. If that is thinking straight, then perhaps. But I know plenty of other people who think my brand of thinking is anything but the straight and right/clear way to see the world.
I find it a curious assumption that the goal of meditation is straight thinking. I would actually say the opposite. The goal would be that the thinking is not what it's about. The goal is more to let go of thinking.
For me, meditation helps me think in a more calm and rational way than if I don't meditate. I'm naturally a very reactive and emotional person. Regular meditation has helped me catch my emotions before I speak (well, most of the time, though I still DO have my moments :P) and to think through HOW I say things as well as WHAT I way.
I know that I have dealt a lot differently with my illness than what I would have even a year ago. And I firmly believe it is because of my regular meditation sessions.
In metta,
Raven
For example without serious thought, no Internet . . . however thinking can be overrated when for example dancing . . . :clap:
However dancing is a great way of being . . . have I gone side ways again?
The reason I mention these three states of 'mind' together is because one flows into another.
We are . . . we think . . . Sideways again . . . :wave:
it can be a escape, a distraction, an ego enhancement, reset button, an abode, a pov...on an on....
and it can help you think in circles or cycles
So the word 'straight thinking' as others have suggested, with its implications of linear logic, is not the purpose of meditation, though perhaps that too may be a developed capacity?
Will I still be able to talk to trees? Or is that a little too open . . . :wave:
The nature of the mind is to see clearly what is there. It is like tying shoes. The penny drops and all the sudden a young child knows how to do it. All the pressure to learn motivates one towards concentration and experimenting with the task. Hey if we could learn to tie a shoe then we can follow the path and examine the knots of our own mind.
http://phys.org/news163670588.html
In some systems we have Celtic riddles, Zen koans or paradoxical assertions such as a 'thought without thinking'. Other examples are expressed in dance, music and poems. However many the straight thoughts, they are all simultaneous lines out to a circle. How wide is the circle, how simultaneous? How denied of logic . . . is a wrong that is right and a right that is nowhere . . .
To awaken the sleeper we must first dream of waking . . .