One of the most common misconceptions about meditation is that it’s about making your mind go blank. I don’t know where this “meme” originated (a “meme” is a virus-like idea which inhabits or even “infects” our minds) but it’s pervasive and long-lasting. I think it may take at least another generation or two of spiritual practice before that notion goes to the scrapheap of ideas that it deserves to rest in.
This mistaken idea is even found in some meditation sites that rank highly in Google, which is a little worrying.
Certainly, we want in meditation to reduce the amount of thinking that goes on. Most of us are plagued with thoughts that arise seemingly without cause. It’s rare to experience more than a few moments without some thought arising. And although this is “normal” (i.e. very common) it’s not healthy. Many of the thoughts that arise in the mind are supportive of emotions of anxiety, ill will, neurotic craving, and self-doubt. So that’s why we want to reduce the amount of thinking we do — to have a rest from this near-relentless onslaught of thoughts.
We can even experience times in meditation when no thoughts arise at all.
Hey, you may be thinking, hasn’t he just contradicted himself? Well, no. Let me explain.
If you think that not thinking is the same as having a blank mind, then you’re making the error of equating “the mind” with “thinking” and specifically with verbal thinking, or inner self-talk. There’s much more to the mind than inner self-talk! There are perceptions of physical sensations, and there are perceptions of feelings and emotions, and of internally-generated images.
When meditation brings us to the point where self-talk ceases, the mind is anything but blank. Instead it’s full — full of an awareness of those sensations, feelings, emotions, and images. I like to think of this as one of the meanings of mindfulness – “mind-full-ness,” or the mind being so full that there’s no need for, and no room for, inner self-talk.
Our inner self-talk, as well as generating or reinforcing unhelpful emotions, also has the effect of keeping us at a relatively superficial level of our experience. We get so wrapped up in what we’re saying to ourselves inside our heads that we often don’t really notice what’s going on in the heart, the body, or even in the outside world.
As we start to pay more attention to the breath, and therefore the body, we find that our thinking naturally starts to quiet down. And this creates an even greater opportunity to notice the body, feelings and emotions, etc.
And we find that interesting things start to happen. Because we’re no longer reinforcing unhelpful emotions, we feel happier. And we’re free to notice that happiness more because we’re less obsessed with our thinking. So we really notice how happy we are becoming.
Interesting things start to happen in the body as well. Because we’re no longer reinforcing unhelpful emotions, the body starts to relax. As it relaxes it feels more enjoyable to have a body and energy starts to be released. And that energy is very pleasurable, and because we’re less obsessed with thinking we’re free to really notice those sensations as well.
And sometimes vivid and symbolic imagery wells up into the mind, and of course we’re free to really pay attention to that. We don’t necessarily think about the imagery, but we allow it to sit within us like a wise presence.
So all this is going on in the mind, and the mind is therefore anything but “blank.” Normal experience seems “blank” in comparison to the fullness of experience that we can develop in meditation. I’m reminded of times I’ve been reading outdoors and have emerged from the lines of text on the page to realize that there’s a world full or life and beauty around me that seems incomparably richer and more beautiful than the book. And I say this as someone who has always loved reading!
Sometimes we decide it is appropriate to think in meditation. And we call this reflection. This kind of thinking is more focused and powerful than normal thought. We don’t have a constant stream of thoughts running through the mind, but instead we take a thought and allow it to be there, not going anywhere but simply sitting in the mind, surrounded by awareness, and we notice what responses it calls forth. It’s like the difference between watching MTV, with its constant jumping from one image to another, and standing in an art museum, spending time in front of one picture and drinking it in. (Although I’ve noticed that people generally spend most of their time reading the labels of the pictures than they spend actually looking at the pictures themselves — a sign, I assume, that they are addicted to inner self-talk and uncomfortable with actual experience.
So, no, it’s not contradictory to say that meditation isn’t about making your mind go blank, but that it can help us to reduce, or even eliminate, inner self-talk for periods of time. Meditation is about developing mindfulness, or “mind-full-ness.”
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Hi Kyle,
That's quite possible as an explanation. When I am speaking, the words seem to manifest from "nowhere." They just appear, and it doesn't appear that "I" am doing the thinking. I can imagine that when people become aware that this sort of thing is going on, they feel a lack of "authorship" or "ownership" of their thoughts, and so assume that they're not thinking, especially if they have previously assumed (as many people do) that thinking is necessarily an inner monologue, as if when you're about to speak your words assemble themselves in an inner antechamber, awaiting their turn to be unloaded. Much of our thinking is in fact non-verbal, and even when we're speaking I find that words simply emerge as speech without any prior verbalization taking place in the mind.
Hi guys I am back I still have this "blank mind" problem (I will talk more about that) but I have come across some interesting information that maybe be of use to some of you. Apparently people who lack conscious thoughts and feelings have a "Auto Activation Deficit" or "Psychic Akinesia” here are some articles I found on this unfortunately there isn't too much information on this condition.
https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/79/10/1088.full
https://sciconrev.org/2002/05/empty-mind-a-brain-disorder/
I honestly believe some of us have some sort of brain disorder maybe even some brain damage. I do believe this "blank mind" state is a permamant condition. Some of the symtons I experience:
Total lack of random, spontaneous thoughts or ideas.
No deep thinking (no real attrachement to thoughts), no daydreaming, thoughts rarely (if ever) trigger any emotion at all.
Constant state of "being", always in a neutral state unless something makes me laugh or (which is rare) upsets me then I go back to being neutral. Feeling or rather "being" neutral for days is totally normal for me.
Memory problems, difficulty following and remembering conversations, even one on one, difficulties multitasking.
A feeling of no ego, somewhat immune to rejection and little need for aprroval from others because I have no automatic negative voice or thoughts to put me down. So in a way my self esteem is rock solid.
Somewhat blurred "hazy" like vision especially when outside, I can't read things as well as I could even from a short distant (eg a few feet away) I have trouble reading things in close range.
I feel my memory is worse as well I can't really remember what I did most days (like last week) I have no real clear thoughts or memories from events in recent times or years at all,
I think I may know what caused this to happen as well (I don't know 100% but it seems like a good possibility). I remember some time back I listened to some music and just relaxed with my eyes closed (you could call this meditation) I remember some music I listened to made me feel pretty emotionally and I suddenly felt a strange shock or energy shoot up my spine. I swear then everything changed and things just never the same since.
Mind you there is some good to having such a dull "blanK" mind for example I sleep easily and quickly obviously because there is no constant thoughts running through my mind (I can't really remember that state).I rarely get depressed. Due to a lack of thinking or deep thoughts I feel I make more of a prescence men (especially women stare at me everywhere I go) people give me respect everywhere I go, It some ways I feel more powerful because I don't have random negative thoughts, ideas or feelings to hold me back, so like I said before my self esteem is often rock solid.
So basically I have apathy most of the time or feel neutral (if you can even call that a feeling because most of the time I don't really feel anything) I run on autopilot and usually do things without thinking.
Anyway I hope this information is useful for those with this problem, Thanks.
That is absolutely fascinating. Thank you. I haven't actually had time to read it all yet, but I'll do so as soon as I get an opportunity.
I've been experiencing the same symptoms as Calm describes for awhile now eg self-esteem not affected by negative self-talk or by the things happening around me, reduced range of emotions, inability to multitask, memory problems, difficulties following conversations etc and i've been diagnosed with schizophrenia and i'm taking medicine. i'm not saying it's the same for any of you because it might be difficult to describe and identify what any one is experiencing but talking to a specialist about what you're experiencing might help.
this seems a bit out of place on a meditation website but i decided to add my two cents XD
Hello,
Since about 1~2 years I experience the same problem as Calm and a few others described here. It is very difficult to explain it to others since it is such an odd state of being but I will give it a shot. It’s not that I can’t think anymore, else I wouldn’t be able to type this but I am somehow no longer aware of my thoughts. I still have the memory of a state of being that allowed me hear an inner voice, back then there were ‘random’ thoughts all over the place. I had no idea where that inner voice came from but before I spoke my mind there always was an inner voice or a recognizable process. Now that inner voice is completely gone, when I speak it seems like an automatic process that’s doesn’t involve thinking. The words suddenly come out, I am not able to back trace them. For some that might seem like a wonderful thing but the downside of this state of being is the absence of spontaneous thought. Forming a thought is actually a task right now while in earlier times I didn’t even have to try, there always were thoughts. Maybe these thoughts are still there but then they are in a closed chamber within my brain, unreachable to me. As a result I almost never experience positive or negative emotions, there are no feelings there only is a neutral state of being towards everything although indifference describes it better. Hiding this for others is easy because I know how I am supposed to react in certain situations. In other words: I am faking emotions. As weird as it may sound the lack of emotions don’t bother me as much as the absence of spontaneous thoughts. Knowing that you can sit in a chair for an hour without forming a single thought is horrible. That’s an emotion you might say and perhaps it is, however it doesn’t really affect me on a deeper level it is just ‘knowing’ that I don’t like it.
So how on earth did it come this far? I don’t know for sure, but I think that it all happened after I tried to shut down my thoughts with meditation. Needless to say, I didn’t want to shut down my thoughts forever. It is quite ironic isn’t it? First I tried to limit or slow down my thoughts and once I reached that I discovered that I actually like having those thoughts. I kind of overshot my initial goal. Instead of having that relax feeling when I temporarily thought about nothing I now feel/think nothing all the time. There are no real ups and downs, everything is in between. The somewhat positive news: since this all started I managed to come into contact with my feelings/thoughts again a couple of times. The bad news: in each instance it only lasted a short time and the last time it happened was about 6 months back. However these occasions proved to me that it is possible to get out of my current zombie-state. The big question is: how? I will give meditation another shot, the only problem is that I am already in the zone people normally try to reach through meditation. Seeking professional help is another option but this issue hasn’t got much attention yet and even when professionals share their opinion on the subject they don’t get much further then depression or a psychosis.
Greetings!
That's interesting, because the start of this article actually states that meditation is NOT about making your mind go blank ie. shutting down thoughts. A few years back, I tried meditation by making my mind go blank too, just like it was described in the above message, but maybe we've been doing it wrong? Maybe what we did was not real, proper meditation? One of my relatives used to practice martial arts, kung fu to be precise, and also did meditation to accompany it (like the buddhist monks do I think), and his teacher taught him the proper method of meditation, and he told me that there is a proper method of meditating, that it must be taught by someone who is knowledgeable in the field, and not to be tried by oneself, because if it is done in the wrong way, things can go wrong.
I found the following: (I guess these are hidden dangers of this type of thing!)
Swami Prabhavananda of the Vedanta Society (Ramakrisha Order) warns about the dangers of yogic breathing exercises in his book, Yoga and Mysticism:
"Now we come to breathing exercises. Let me caution you: they can be very dangerous. Unless properly done, there is a good chance of injuring the brain. And those who practice such breathing without proper supervision can suffer a disease which no known science or doctor can cure. It is impossible even for a medical person to diagnose such an illness."
Shree Purohit Swami’s Commentary on Pantanjali’s Yoga Sutras warns:
"In India and Europe, I came across some three hundred people who suffered permanently from wrong practices. The doctors, upon examination, found there was nothing organically wrong and consequently could not prescribe treatment."
United Nations spiritual adviser and spiritist Sri Chinmoy, author of Yoga and the Spiritual Life, observes: "To practice pranayama without real guidance is very dangerous. I know of three persons who have died from it."
Hans-Ulrich Rieker admonishes in The Yoga of Light: "Yoga is not a trifling jest if we consider that any misunderstanding in the practice of yoga can mean death or insanity," and that in kundalini yoga, if the breath or prana is "prematurely exhausted [exhaled] there is immediate danger of death for the yogi."
Gopi Krishna, another yoga authority, also warns of the possible dangers of yoga practice, including "drastic effects" on the central nervous system and the possibility of death. Gopi Krishna, "The True Aim of Yoga," Psychic, January-February, 1973, p. 13.
The standard authority on hatha yoga, The Hatha Yoga Pradipika (Chapter 2, verse 15), cautions: "Just as lions, elephants, and tigers are tamed, so the prana [breath; actually prana is the alleged divine energy underlying the breath] should be kept under control. Otherwise it can kill the practitioner."
Hindu master Sri Krishna Prem cautions in The Yoga of the Bhagavat Gita: "As stated before, nothing but dangerous, mediumistic psychisms or neurotic dissociations of personality can result from the practice of [yoga] meditation without the qualifications mentioned at the end of the last chapter." He warns, "To practice it, as many do, out of curiosity... is a mistake which is punished with futility, neurosis, or worse [‘even insanity itself’]."
Swami Prabhavananda’s Yoga and Mysticism lists brain injury, incurable diseases, and insanity as potential hazards of wrong yoga practice; Ulrich-Rieker author of The Yoga of Light lists cancer of the throat, all sorts of ailments, blackouts, strange trance states, or insanity from even "the slightest mistake."
In The Seven Schools of Yoga, Ernest Wood warns of "the imminent risk of most serious bodily disorder, disease, and even madness."
Read more: https://www.city-data.com/forum/religion-philosophy/186212-can-meditation-bad-you-buddhists-prophets-2.html#ixzz14vLgv3UK
I think it's good to bear in mind that pranayama involves breath-control exercises, which I've only done once and which I found very unpleasant. It's also worth bearing in mind that some people will stress that meditation is dangerous unless done under their guidance because they want you to be dependent upon them. I really can't take the warnings above seriously, at least if applied to Buddhist meditation of the sort taught here.
Hi, Numb.
This is quite fascinating, and I sympathize. I have to say, though, that you're not "in the zone people normally try to reach through meditation." I certainly don't know anyone who's aiming for the state of numbness you've been stuck in. In fact, I practice meditation in order to feel more alive and more loving.
I wonder what effect lovingkindness meditation would have on you?
I wish you well!
Bodhipaksa
Hey, again, Numb.
You wrote: "..when I speak it seems like an automatic process that’s doesn’t involve thinking. The words suddenly come out, I am not able to back trace them."
I thought it was like that for everyone. It's certainly like that for me. But I don't see it as a problem -- it's just how things are. Words ultimately come, as do all our actions, from a deeply unconscious place, and irrupt into awareness rather than being generated consciously. Or at least that's my experience.
You go on, "For some that might seem like a wonderful thing but the downside of this state of being is the absence of spontaneous thought." I'm puzzled by that, since what you've just described seems to be spontaneous thought. Could you clarify?
Hello again and thanks for the replies!
Of course my current state of being is not the zone people want to be in, but before I started with some meditating practices (kundalini) I had a so called ‘racing mind’. By meditating I could quiet the mind and it did feel good, at least until it became permanent. Because at that time the ecstatic feeling slowly started to fade until it was completely gone. I think it is possible that I indeed used wrong meditation techniques or even wrong breathing techniques. I was under the impression it was harmless and just something worth trying. What I meant by stating that speaking became an automatic process is the complete absence of thought before speaking. In the past I didn’t think of every word before I would actually say it but there were always (random) thoughts before I would speak. Now there seem to be no thoughts at all.
So with spontaneous thought I meant the appearance of an inner voice which comments on the things that take or took place. I call it spontaneous because right now I can only think when I try hard. I literally have to pressure myself to think while thinking used to be a natural thing that I couldn’t even control. Throughout the day there were thoughts varying from the bird in the garden till abiogenesis and from an event that took place one year ago till something that will take place next year. That’s gone now unless I force my mind to think. How I force myself to think? By sitting down and telling myself to think about subject A or B.
It’s frustrating because I know it used to be different, it is possible that my mind just changed/evolved and that I now blame meditation for the changes since I can’t come up with anything else and because it fits in the timeframe. By the way I also noticed there might be gender differences in thinking, women seem to think way more than men. Some of my male friends told me that every now and then they had no thoughts at all while my female friends stated that they were always thinking about something.
Post scriptum: I will look into lovingkindness meditation, thanks for the advice.
Greetings!
Hi again everyone.
Numb said:
"As a result I almost never experience positive or negative emotions, there are no feelings there only is a neutral state of being towards everything although indifference describes it better."
I experience this too for almost a year now. My feelings seem greatly reduced I remember when my thoughts used to affect me and other people's reactions. Thoughts create feelings. Now they don't, because of this my confidence seems to be pretty solid as it's hard to be phazed by much anymore. I think this might be because the automatic thoughts I used to have would kick in and put me down, or place doubt in my mind etc. Now that automatic voice is gone. I swear I only have conscious thoughts now, because my mind is so clear I often fall asleep instantly. I feel kind of fearless and more confident because the emotionally energy I used to experience isn't there anymore. However there are some downsides to this state, for example I think I have a harder time relating to others, I rarely ever feel much strong emotions anymore no sadness, anger, boredom, enthusiam. Of course I can fake emotions and I think I have to at times so I don't appear too strange to people. I don't want be in a constant state of apathy but it's difficult to litterally care and be bothered about most things like I used to. For those who relate to what I am talking about this state is NOT depression, I know what depression feels like because I had it when I was younger. Honestly I hardly feel anything at all most of the time. Does anyone else find since getting into this state people are often staring at you? I find this all the time and perhaps it's because they sense I have no fear so perhaps I come across as confident to them it doesn't seem matter how I look at the time either. I still have thoughts but no matter what I think about there is no affective energy behind my thoughts, beliefs like before. I also often have periods where I don't even have conscious thoughts like my mind is blank. It seems like once you get into this state it's impossible to go back.
Like Numb has said maybe we did the meditation wrong and perhaps this caused some minor dysfunction in the brain.