Thought or no thought? Would your aim involve being truly in the moment with or without thought in order to feel the most reality from your experience?
The more true thoughts you hold in your mind, the more reality you are said to contain. Aim to keep your mind silent, until your thoughts can be likened to the thoughts of god.
What are these true thoughts you should hold in your mind? How do you tell the difference between these and others that are not as true? Should you simply be following the highest thoughts you know or let go of what you think in order to be truly present?
Each person by necessity will have a different line of thought or association with regard to the same objects. For instance, imagine an apple. What does that mean to you? If we placed the image of an apple inside an apple farmer's mind, he will think of working his farm, then of income, then perhaps of his family life. Then say we placed the image of an apple inside a carpenter's mind, he will associate the apple with different ideas, perhaps of health or the texture and taste of an apple in his mouth. Following from that example it's realistic to infer that each person can think of an object only as far as their own nature allows them to think of it. Now conceive for me of god, as the substance of the universe or the nature of reality. A perfect, infinite being from which all things that exist follow in an infinite number of ways. Though quite different from a human's finite mind, god's mind also produces ideas which must necessarily follow from his own nature, that being of an infinite or perfect character. Therefore it must be correct that any idea of god must be absolutely true and cannot in any way be false. You asked in your original post which contained more reality, thoughts or no thoughts. I wanted to show that it depends on the type of thought. But now to be truly present... is to be inside the object you are experiencing. If the object is yourself then I would suggest no thought, as the idea of your mind is connected to your mind in the same way your mind is connected to your physical body.
I prefer thoughts personally... imagination and knowledge are two of my favorite things. I can't really keep my mind silent anyways because even if I try, I'll end up thinking "man, that's awesome!" or "what a cool looking tree". It's not that I have ADD, it's just that too many things amaze me to remain silent.
When you say you can't keep your mind silent, are you just referring to your inner dialogue, or does it also mean that you find it hard to be still and quiet? If, for example, you're having a conversation, are you someone who always looks to fill any gap as soon as one arises, perhaps ready to speak before the other person has even finished?
No, I mainly mean when no conversation is going on... or when I'm alone. I have no problems listening to others, but I did have a bad comprehension problem with reading in school. For whatever reason, that has cured itself though... not really sure why. Honestly, I just find the silence boring, and like to occupy my time with curiousity.. it's just always been my personality since I started smoking buds..
It's not a question of prefer so much, it's more like what seems the most real to me. For instance, if I'm listening to someone speak, especially if they're talking from the heart, if I allow a thought or idea to take hold during what should be the active listening phase of the process, then I have to give this thought attention in order to ensure I hold it for later. In doing so I'm no longer still, and therefore no longer truly in the moment. My practice of stillness means that when there's nothing to say, I'm in the present moment and observing in a state of awareness that doesn't include the lower aspects of the mind. Yes, ideas do still appear in this state, and I can and do choose to explore them, but insights feels different to normal thoughts and it's those I really love looking at. Otherwise I simply acknowledge what appears and let go, preferring the state of awareness that I'm left with to one of internal mental chatter.
I cannot grasp what it would be like to have no thoughts or not experience. Both have always been coupled. Is a thought not an experience in itself? Is an experience really not just a thought representing a specific situation? This is the stuff that come to my mind when I try to think about this and I'm not quite sure what you're imagining.
I'm not sure we're ever in a state of not experiencing, even during sleep or unconsciousness there is still activity on some level. Experiencing without thought is different to the usual mode of mental activity most people live with. It involves letting go of a sense of self, a kind of surrender to what is actually happening, right now. With practice you start to notice that there are gaps in between the thoughts, and eventually, when those gaps become longer than the thoughts themselves, awareness starts to blossom and things feel differently from what was there before. The key is practice of course. It's difficult to do this at first, but then everything is difficult at first, and for me, without having cannabis to assist in this process, it can take a long time to achieve through discipline alone.
A zen master would smack us. Much later he might utter some goofy shit like, "taking aim, the arrow misses the target". We think - yeah, right. Much later we release the arrow and it strikes us right between the eyes. Bulls eye!
Mind, as in awareness, thoughts are illusions, they are not true to self nature nor reality, thoughts are based on personal experience...how could a thought improve your conception of total reality? the answer is total awareness, no mind or mind, in total awareness they are quite similar, intently watching your mind is empty, yet full
I prefer to watch thoughts come and go without adding fuel to the fire. Sometimes I forget that thought even exists, and everything becomes silent. Thinking is natural, thoughtlessness is natural. They both have their place. Balance is key, forcing thought or no-thought is unnatural. When one is a child, one thinks at times, even obsesses, or one doesn't think at all, and is immersed in the world. Both happen, but the child is happy, the child is in touch with life, some would say with god. The child, regardless of thinking or not-thinking, does not seperate himself from the world, from his surroundings. Many times, subject and object disappear for the child. The child is spontaneous. The child's attention can go from one place to another in an instant, without second guessing, without being self-conscious. The child does not try to be mindful, to be aware, but the child is often mindful and aware. And because of this the child is in a regular state of awe. The child is a pinnacle of natural-ness. A good example for us all to follow.
Thought is the basis of conversation, even the more empathetic, telepathic, intuitive can say, a deep thought is a subtle feeling, there are two types of feeling, internal and external, both of which can be evoked by any numbers of different types of stimuli, still this is a duality of perception based on the density of your own being, so do you believe these bodies are vehicles of awareness? and do you believe in a conscientious awareness? or rather a frequency of vibration of a material object, or would you at least say this makes up a part of our being? In psychology, babies automatically cry when they are hungry and fall asleep when they are tired so they are basically learning to communicate through body language before they learn to talk. So if you are a thought then you arent a mind and if you are a mind then you arent a thought and if your niether you must be something deeper, like a theta wave, and why is it that we can see in our dreams while producing theta waves... Must be something beyond what our technology could possibly measure or produce... I would say we have a thought, but we don't associate our selves as primarily being that thought, rather it is a part of what we are trying to express using a form of agreed upon language for whatever language you speak, cause if you think about it is there a language to a thought, then why do certain people choose to express truth through art, or books or poems rather then just displaying it as the language they speak, and it's because its really simple, intuition has its own thought, a feeling, which is why beethoven could right music when he was just 2 or 11 or however old he was back then