Meditators often want to achieve a state of “no thought” or “no mind”. I remember when I was practicing zen meditation as well as Vipassana, I put in a lot of energy into achieving the state of no thought. I imagined that it was an important milestone on the way to joy.
It turns out that it is indeed important to learn to be without thought, but that is the best that is possible: to be mostly without thoughts for some time. There is a more important aspect than merely being with or without thought. That aspect is what I would like to elaborate in this article.
What is thought? What do I mean by thought?
When I speak of thought throughout this article, I’m not necessarily talking about the deep psychological, philosophical, or scientific understanding or definitions of thought. That is by itself several books worth of content, and there is a lot of debate around the topic, but is not necessarily relevant to our discussion here. I want to discuss our experiential understanding of thought, the way we perceive it as it happens.
By thought, I mean the continuous mental chatter that happens, the continuous mental noise that occupies our heads throughout the day. This chatter occupies our attention either partially or completely, and keeps us hooked to it continuously. Sometimes thoughts take the form of a stream of words, at other times they appear in the form of music, pictures, and video. Often, thoughts are accompanied by emotions, feelings, and vague sensations. In my experience, thoughts are mostly about the past or about the future, and negative or positive in emotional tone.
Thoughts are a passive, automatic process, as opposed to active thinking. Thoughts “happen” to us, and we either observe them, or more often we are engulfed by them.
When we’re feeling relatively okay or we’re in a good mood, the quality of our thoughts seems to be benign, sometimes even making us smile, but the thought process goes on continuously, like the noisy hum of a bad air conditioner. This experience is universal to all, so much so that it seems completely “normal”.
However, if we’re upset, sad, depressed, angry or in a general negative state, then the thoughts take on a more malevolent aspect. They are violent, disturbing, loud, and seem to have us entirely in their grip. We find that we’re unable to stop the tsunami of negative thoughts and they seem to control us. Thoughts seem to erupt out of us like the eruption of a volcano. They certainly seem to feel like a fire is going on within us, causing deep discomfort and distress.
Another side effect of thoughts, is that they distract us, rob us of our focus, take on a life of their own, and often side track our conscious efforts at a given task or activity. Thoughts have a quality where they draw us into them and keep us riveted to the story or movie that they seem to be telling. So much so, that we’re not aware of ourselves, much like the state we experience when we watch a gripping movie: we forget that we exist, and therefore, for a short while, our problems and suffering seem to disappear. The stream of thoughts – more like a wild river of thoughts – has a lot of power and momentum, like a wild bull or a charging rhino. We get dragged along helplessly, unable to press the brakes for any significant period. There seem to be a few moments of sanity, where we feel as if we’ve just awakened from a fascinating, or terrifying dream. These moments get lost very quickly, as another string of thoughts take us along on their merry journey.
The avoidance of the here and now, which is mistakenly perceived as dull, boring, or meaningless, is a major purpose of thought.
When you start paying attention to thought, you will notice that the first few thoughts that come up are about whatever is bothering you the most at the moment.
Is it even possible to be without thought?
While, for a novice at meditation or awareness practices, it seems that it is impossible to accomplish anything remotely like a no thought state of mind, with time and practice, it is possible to get to a state where thoughts are not violent and overpowering for the most part. In this state, there is a detached awareness of thoughts and they come and go without establishing a permanent residence in our minds. There is a space between us and our thoughts. We are not absorbed into them, we are not consumed by our thoughts.
Is it desirable? Worth striving for?
If you are on the path to awakening, and full awareness, then you will have to cross the barrier presented by thought. You will need to learn the way to achieve mastery over thought. Then thought will serve you, rather than being your master.
The fruits of mastery over thought are amazing: a state of deep calm, peace, and noiselessness. You will feel amazing, your perceptions will deepen and sharpen and you will have greater focus, and will be able to overcome distractions.
However, no one can banish thought altogether, and more importantly, there is no need for such a thing. Mastery over thought is sufficient. Then you can think actively when you need it, and when you do not need thought, it will be like light clouds floating in a clear sky. You will be able to observer them in a detached fashion, and they will have no power over you.
