And my suspicion is that many people who boast of being able to stop their thoughts "at will" are stopping them only on a superficial level; they simply don't notice that they also have much quieter, more subtle thoughts going on. (I know there are folks who believe all discursive thought involves mental verbalization. My thoughts are in words only when there is some prospect of communicating them to someone else.)
If it were true that some people were reluctant to let thoughts settle because they were afraid their self would go away too, those people would likely have a problem transcending with TM. And of course, at least in the TM context, "transcending" during meditation doesn't imply enlightenment or "specialness" or having transcended the Self, any more than "no-thought" does. ---In [email protected], <turquoiseb@...> wrote : My "another word" would probably be "no-thought." Unlike some here, I have never had any problem achieving this -- as a kid, before TM, while practicing TM, or afterwards, practicing other methods. You just stop your thoughts. Simple as that. As for why it's always been easy for me and seems not to be for other people, I have no idea, but I would suspect that many people identify their sense of self so much with the constant flow of thoughts that they're reluctant to let that flow settle down and go away, because they're afraid their self will go away, too. As you say, the word "transcending" is misleading, because one can stop one's thoughts and still have a sense of self. No-thought is more accurate, because it lacks connotations of "specialness" or having achieved something. It's just allowing your mind to become still, not "enlightened." No one really needs a technique to do this, or a mantra; stillness is the mind's natural state. You just allow it to happen. IMO, of course. From: "anartaxius@..." <anartaxius@...> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, March 4, 2014 7:23 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] BLANKING Ann used a great word to describe one result of meditation: BLANKING. This word does not have all the metaphysical implications that the word transcending does and might be more useful in a scientific context. The sense of self is always where 'you' are, regardless of 'state of consciousness', or what your mind appreciates as self, so transcending is a kind of misleading word. In other words, thought is 'transcended', but you do not, so saying you can transcend is ridiculous. I have experienced the first three of the states below (though not the drunkenness portion of anesthaesia). deep sleep, a very dull sort of blanking TC, during meditation, a more wakeful form of blanking (a small self-referral loop) general anesthaesia (severe drunkenness might be considered a form of anesthaesia as well). This is the most blank one can get short of real death, with higher brain function neural networks pretty much in decoherence temporary unconsciousness due to injury reversible coma irreversible coma - brain death while body is alive death (though it has been shown mammalian brains goes into a hyper active state shortly before death if they are awake immediately before rather than in a coma etc.) I was wondering if anyone else had a word (or words) besides 'blanking' that might fill the bill for a replacement for 'transcending'? This might also be more applicable to other kinds of meditation such as mindfulness, where no effort is used, but the goal is not to become completely silent, that may or may not happen. The main point is to just be still, and experience what happens.
