Dethinking Thinking
September 15, 2015
Dogen had a nice definition for meditation, which is “dethinking your thinking.” You’re trying to take apart the concepts that you carry around with you, especially the ones that are causing you to suffer—and a lot of these concepts you believe in, very firmly. They’re what the Thai ajaans called sommut, from the Pali sammati. They’re the conventions by which we communicate with one another, make sense of our world around us, especially in the social sphere, through the agreements we have, both within ourselves and with other people. The word “red” has a certain meaning. The word “blue” has another meaning. “Like,” “dislike”: All the concepts of language are things that we learn to agree on with one another, to use when we deal with one another.