Try not to think (I dare you)

This is an experiment that takes us to the limits.  Not to think at all, when one is wide awake and in full possession of one's faculties, cannot be achieved, or only for brief intervals.  So it can only be attempted.  Some attempts are short-lived, some go further.  Some come close, others less so, to the impossible goal.  Some brush it, others only glimpse it on the horizon.

    Why is not-thinking impossible? The experience of it would remove us from the sphere of the human, it would allow us to escape the incessant babble of language.  We would tumble into a state of stupefaction, into pure, moment-to-moment, animal life. Or else, which is possibly the same thing, we would fall into the divine, the bottomless, abyssal silence.  It may be that thought is a patchwork thing existing in-between.  Not quite divine, and not quite stupefaction.  It may be a way of rowing between eternity and the instant.  Or between silence and words, presence and absence, being and non-being, etc.

In any case, thinking cannot be arrested definitively.  It's more a matter of temporary interruptions, circumscribed parentheses.  These are possible, and worth experimenting with.  To launch into this, you must take it little by little, in measured stages.  It is vital, first of all, that you don't tense up, that you let yourself go.  Willpower, here, can only act obliquely and indirectly.  What we're dealing with is not an achievable project, for it's obviously of no help to think that we are not thinking.  It's better to know in advance that we are going to fail.  That we shall be, at one moment or another, caught thinking.  Failure is certain.  Therefore any progress is of value.

The most effective training consists of letting your thoughts flow by.  Don't stop them (impossible) but don't hold onto them (possible).  Observe them as you do passing clouds, far off and inevitable.  Imitate the indifference of the sky.  Persevere in remaining yourself unclouded, and pay no attention to what is passing by.  Remain at one remove, somewhere below the frame, your eyes open up on what is in front of you. And that is all.  Sensations still exist (colors, lights, breath, your skin, your muscles, noises off) but don't integrate them into your consciousness, still less into an idea or argument.  And finally, occasionally, in snatches, you may manage to move forward into the clear sky, into the empty light, where there is no disturbance and no form.

The brief successes can have substantial consequences.  Repercussions that go way beyond the moments during which they occur.  Even one such success will have a lasting effect.

Duration:  10, then 20, then 30 minutes

Props: None

Effect: Void

Astonish Yourself!  Roger-Pol Droit

A rose by any other name is still meditation. (India)