Meditation is a thing that you do with your attention. When you pay attention or concentrate or get distracted, that's you doing a thing with your attention. And that's obviously important stuff in your life and the world. Meditation takes it further.

We basically have 2 kinds of meditation.

  1. Concentration meditation, which is plain ol concentration taken to a higher level.

  2. Zen meditation (aka shikantaza), which is another thing to do with your attention, kindof a left turn from concentration and is a bit esoteric.

So there you go.

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[–] 2 points 1 day ago (3 children)

What’s the longest you’ve ever gone in a completely thoughtless state?

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    I guess 15 minutes. Maybe 60. Time kinda gets away from me sometimes.

    There's always idea-stuff flowing by. Like, I dunno, snow falling. It's whether I react to it that makes it into thinking, basically. When I don't interact with it by reacting to it by moving my attention and such it isn't really thinking anymore. It's like snow.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    There is no good definition of a thought.

    But as a person who struggles to crack 60 seconds, respect.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 1 day ago

    Thanks. Keep in mind that that's the rare best-case scenario. My daily best is more like 5 minutes.

    Getting my life to where that best-case scenario happens more often is a big deal for me. I work on that.

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