Do we "think" in Meditation? [split from Manu's thread on Witchcraft]

Manu wrote:

Connor L. wrote: What I DO have beef with is here supposed authority on meditation. She states that meditation doesn't involve thinking... but, it does in every circumstance. Perhaps she means that we aren't consciously making constructs with our mind (hence, brain doing = thinking).. but, even then... I don't think the wording is good. One can never clear the mind. One can only be with the mind itself. That's where focus is actually born. If she had said that meditation involves honing thinking, then I would have been more lenient on my criticism.

This is certainly worth its own topic, I would be very interested in learning more about focus as it pertains to magickal work. My experience with meditation is more related to what this author describes. And while I realize "thinking" is not turned off, it feels as if it is something different, as if I step out of the typical thinking of observing/evaluating into a different kind of thinking of maybe... feeling/being? I can't quite describe it.

In my experience, focus and anti-focus are the only two avenues where spiritual work is possible.

If one is focused, then one can actively work on the conscious mind. It can bring you stability, like grounding yourself before an intense, physical experience.

If one is anti-focused (or extremely fuzzy and not thinking), then one enters the sort of semi/sub-conscious state. Sometimes known as trance states. A lot of people do subconscious (magical) energy work down there... I've never been able to experience it.. SO, I have no authority to speak on it.

I think most of my best work on exterior things is when I am hyper focused; my meditation and my magick are both stronger at helping me solve things outside myself if I laser-beam onto the situation at hand. It's a very "yang" feeling thing to me, to actively go after a thought that way.

Conversely, I find that my best work on interior things--personal problems, faults in myself, etc.--are done in that anti-focus or "fuzzy" place. It feels more "yin" to me, passively allowing the problem to solve itself while I watch in awe.

My explanation of meditation would be that it is not about the cessation of thinking but rather the gaining of the awareness of our thinking as well as our actions and reactions. Its a state of total focus on specific aspects of our consciousness that we choose. In deep alpha states we are focused inward on the self and those thoughts in our minds, allowing ourselves to explore our feelings on an issue and make decisions on how we might like to proceed, i.e. best courses of action.

We can also be in Gamma states where we are focused outwardly and in a super-conscious state which gives us an awareness of our actions. This is a sort of "moving meditation" in which we achieve a heightened cognizance of our surroundings and of our interactions. For example when we get angry we become aware of that anger and are able to both be angry and step outside ourselves to evaluate that anger and thus be able to make decisions cognitively that will allow us to be constructive (and not destructive) in the expression of our anger.

There are many forms of meditation. The experience of no-self, or lack of ego, or lack of perception, etc. can be had during meditation, and in many of those experiences I'd say that there is no thinking involved -- or mind, really.

I certainly do.

Thoughts and awareness of my physical state.

Thoughts adrift unbidden in my consciousness.

A silent and uncritical presence noticing those thoughts.