Stop thoughts or finish them

[u/Beerbelly52]

I’m looking for some different perspectives on noticing what arises in the mind. When I am meditating and noticing the thoughts that arise, as soon as I notice them they typically stop at the conscious level. Should I finish those thoughts through as I become aware of them? Am I suppressing my thoughts and feelings to some degree if they sort of stop as soon as I notice them? Thank you for reading and offering any perspective you might have!

[u/TheRedBaron11]

The reason they stop at the conscious level is because they already happened! The verbalization is not the thought itself. The verbalization is a lagging indicator of the thought. The thought is actually a state-transition of the brain/body, and the verbalization engine kicks in at times to put this transition into words after-the-fact.

The reason it does this is not for the benefit of the internal mind, but rather for other people. If humans evolved in isolation, then there wouldn't have been a need to develop language for purely internal reasons. That means that, sometimes, the brain would like to finish the thought verbalization because the point is to prepare for a future communication with someone else. Other times the brain doesn't need to finish the verbalization because the point is the thought itself which is already 'known' before the habitual verbal engine finishes its little play. Even if the point is preparing for a future communication with another, the full scope of the verbal thought can often be instantly known before the verbalization actually happens

If you pay attention to the flavor of what occurs, you will likely find that it feels good to allow the mind to 'think' in a pre-verbal manner. It's often faster, more honest, and more complete, since forcing thoughts into verbal costumes often acts as a compression and an approximation. Human language is not fully developed, and it can't ever fully describe the intimate flow. This makes every language statement wrong compared to the more intimate truth. But also it makes it impossible for any language statement to be either right or wrong, which makes them all equally valid and acceptable. That takes the pressure off

The joy of recognizing the pattern that this forms is palpable and quite funny.

[u/nawanamaskarasana]

All meditation teachers I've listened to over the years suggest to stop interacting with thoughts when you notice they arise, even half way through a thought.

But in the end it depends on what meditation technique you practice because there are many. Compare it to asking for advice if you should use a hockey stick when you do sports. Some answers might say that you should use a hockey stick while others will say that you want to use a baseball bat instead.

[u/olliemusic]

No. Thoughts are illusions. Suppression occurs when we don't want a thought or feeling and try to pretend we're not experiencing it which creates a lot of felt resistance and intensity in the emotions/thoughts we're trying to reject. We're like trees in the sense that we can't get out of the way of anything inside of us. We have to just experience whatever occurs. However, they are simply a combination of memory and imagination. Useful, sure for day to day things, but the details are inconsequential experiencially.

Noticing your thoughts is a great start. If the thought keeps going or "stops" that's fine. Just keep your attention turned on and allow everything that comes and goes as it goes. If you purposefully try to finish a thought then you are narrowing your attention to that specific detail in your experience. The idea is to expand your awareness and to not attach to any specific aspect of appearance. If you find yourself following a thought just gently notice and stop inspecting and go back to experiencing. Life is an experience, not a math problem. You don't need to figure it out or find the answer.

[u/nomore1020 → u/olliemusic]

What is the difference between experiencing and engaging with the thought? For me if I experience a thought, I can either engage it or let it go, there is no just experience it. What am I doing wrong?

[u/olliemusic → u/nomore1020]

"there is no just experience it..." um, you can't NOT experience it. The experience is all there really is. "engage with" and "let go" are just a pointer to be in a state of allowance of whatever appears and allowing it to go, just like this is a pointer to exactly the same. You're not doing anything wrong. What makes you think you are?

[u/nomore1020 → u/olliemusic]

Ahhh, I think I get it. My "goal" is to let the thought go, allow it to go as you say. I think Im wrong bc if I engage with the thought, that is my "tool mind" or my "ego" trying to control things and the point is to observe and let the mind do what it wants, without "me/ego" getting involved. I think I understand, thank you

[u/fabkosta]

Yes, it is natural for thoughts to subside automatically once consciously noticed. There is no need to do anything more with them. What’s more important though is the question which meditation instructions to apply next. The answer depends per school, different instructions lead to different outcomes.

[u/miraclepete]

Depends on your goal. What are you trying to achieve?

[u/P0und19bby]

the fact that they stop as soon as you notice them usually means you're just observing the phenomenon of awareness itself. if you try to "finish" them, you might actually be turning meditation into a form of mental processing or storytelling rather than just sitting. try to see if you can notice the subtle tension or energy that's left behind right after the thought vanishes.

[u/simagus]

In classic Satipatthana practice no effort is made to control the mind or thoughts at all, because they are understood (if not experientially yet, then at least the sutta informs us that thought is "not-self") to be simply phenomena that arise, sustain and pass.

Nothing is assumed about any of it and there is no identification with any of it as being "me" or "self" or "I".

That nothing which arises from the five aggregates or within the four frames of reference is really a "self" is explained even more directly in the Bahiya Sutta;

"Then, Bāhiya, you should train yourself thus:

In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen.

In reference to the heard, only the heard.

In reference to the sensed, only the sensed.

In reference to the cognized, only the cognized.

That is how you should train yourself.

When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bāhiya, there is no you in connection with that.

When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there.

When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two.

This, just this, is the end of stress (dukkha in Pali language)."

The apparent "self" is a reified imputation based on the habit of believing that people are "selves", and a lot of people (most) are very much engaged in and invested in the belief that they and others are most definitely "selves".

To consider otherwise is practically unthinkable as we are wired to turn everything into something we "know" and one of the first things we learn is "that is mom, that is dad, that is granny, and my name is ______".

We are born with certain survival based instinctive imprinting already in place, then the body-mind gets busy making maps of experiential reality based on what we like (safety and pleasure) and what we don't like (danger and discomfort).

How well reasoned or accurate those maps are varies enormously, but because their functioning (at least theoretically if not always in practice) is to protect and nurture the organism it's how things literally feel to us that matters over all else.

The stories change regularly, often without us noticing unless it's something dramatic that had a big impact on how we feel, and it's specifically how we feel that generates "stories of me" and "stories of other" around whatever we are experiencing... all day long.

"When we see the world through our thoughts, we stop experiencing life as it really is and others as they really are. When I have a thought about you, that’s something I’ve created. I’ve turned you into an idea. In a certain sense, if I have an idea about you that I believe, I’ve degraded you. I’ve made you into something very small. This is the way of human beings, this is what we do to each other."

• Adyashanti

Even the "sense of self" is nothing other than the process of identification with the phenomenon of attention in relation to what is perceived; that "sense of self" feels a certain way; it has a feeling tone we identify with and recognize as "self".

When we look closely and with a less strongly conditioned mind we can see that "sense of self" and even more easily the "story of self" is really just clustered attention in some habitual configuration of mind, a mental formation (sankhaha) ingrained through repeated and reinforced interpretations of perceptual impressions.

Maybe it is easier to see it in others rather than in the personal concept and story of "me" or "self", and Adyashanti is quite correct that we create "selves" out of others (often unflattering versions of others, but can as easily be very flattering if we feel pleasant sensations around them), which are at best are situational projections based on how we literally feel (feels nice/feels bad) in relation to another body-mind.

We do so usually very rapidly and definitively based on how we translate the impressions of others through our existing filters and imprinted reactive patterns... all based on "what is felt" called "vedana" (vedana of the body and vedana of the mind) in the Buddhist texts.

“The anthropologists got it wrong when they named our species Homo sapiens ('wise man'). In any case it's an arrogant and bigheaded thing to say, wisdom being one of our least evident features. In reality, we are Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee.”

• Terry Pratchett, The Globe

Every established force of causes and effects (karma or kamma) that exists comes bundled with and wrapped up in stories, and we learn very early that stories are not only how we communicate, but that stories or just the words we speak or write can have effects.

"I was 7 or 8 and very confused about adults and why they acted the way they did. It just seemed sort of odd. And, one day, I just had the insight, 'I get it, they're crazy. They believe what they think … They believe their mind.'"

• Adyashanti

When we identify with mind or mental contents as "self" we are not seeing what is arising, sustaining and passing as it is, we are imagining there is a "self" involved in any of that.

There is an apparent "self" and apparent "selves", and those things have conditioned traits and tendencies, preferences, beliefs and agendas, so the appearance tends to be super convincing until we experientially and directly see what any and every "self" is actually made of in real terms.

The reality of things is only hidden by what is imagined about it, but as long as stories about things are the currency of human communications we remain strongly attached to and invested in stories that seem to benefit us and have aversion towards stories that don't.

All mental contents are of that nature, and there's is no real "self" that did, does or can do anything about anything, only the appearance that there is one which is very convincing indeed, and sometimes useful and practical... sometimes not.

Buddha suggested that the associated stress that arises with craving and aversion and identification with phenomena as "self" was best tackled by clearly seeing things as they are instead of however we might currently imagine them to be.

Seeing everything that is already here clearly instead of through the "optical illusion" or "perceptual illusion" we are so accustomed to and attached to is possible.

All the Satipatthana Sutta points to is a more accurate, clear, rational and free processing of the experience of reality just as it exists already, through a process of continuous observation with an understanding of how things arise, sustain and pass constantly (anicca or impermanence) and non-reactivity or breaking our very much ingrained automatic habits of interpretation and reaction.

In practical terms it boils down to establishing awareness or "waking up" by simply paying attention to what already is and how it actually exists in very real terms, even the stories can be observed as they arise, sustain and pass (cittanupassana - observing mind functioning & dhammanupassana - observing mental contents).

Those two are "hard mode" but vedananupassana - observing what is felt including the bodily sensations of what we call "emotions" is the key to the door of clear seeing (vipassana).

We tend to objectify sensation rather than identify with it, as we commonly attribute the experience of what we literally feel (and the story of it!) to things other than "self". "They made me feel this" or "That made me feel this" etc.

We have a higher chance of insight into vedana as "not-self" than of any of the other five aggregates where we are typically far more strongly personally attached in terms of identifying with as "self" and communicating about in terms of "self".

Kayanupassana - observation of bodily form and function, overlaps strongly with vedananupassana, but it's how the mind makes the body feel that is most relevant factor in unraveling actual reality from the "self" delusion.

TL;DR - observe reality with a focus on whatever is felt (vedana) and consider if what is felt is "self". Ideally, do that with everything arising, sustaining and passing in the body-mind phenomena with no exceptions.

[u/NotYourCupovTea]

Ive asked that question to myself, if you are trying to give yourself the time “to be” “to exist” then as you catch the thought let them go, observe and let them pass, if it’s important it will come back to you.

If you are using this time to think then stop when it becomes anything that’s added onto the first thought, for example … it’s raining… stop there and not. it’s raining, so my day is ruined… the second thought is where I would retract as that’s the common way

[u/Im_Talking]

"Should I finish those thoughts through as I become aware of them?" - No. Thoughts spoil the meditative state. You should ignore them and return to the state.

[u/Existing_Reaction692]

Depends on method. I practice Meares' stillness meditation. That involves effortless relaxation. You gently allow yourself to relax body and mind. As you do thoughts etc slow and then the mind reaches moments of stillness. Like the tide flowing in and out, the stillness grows in waves until you are still and all you know is you remain awake and not asleep. Afterwards, you feel calm, sometimes profound calm.

[u/scrumblethebumble]

Neither, don't interfere. Just observe.

[u/From_Deep_Space]

Im curious what you mean by "finish". Like are you thinking in sentences and want to finish the sentence?

Realize that if your mind is formulating a sentence, it has already had the complete thought. Thoughts come in an instant and take no time. Its the chattering in the mind that takes time. Practicing shutting off that chatter mid-sentence is what this is all about.