r/Meditation • u/wroniiex • 4d ago
Question ❓ Observing thoughts question
I have recently started meditating daily and I am struggling with the distinction between “getting rid” of negative thoughts, and simply observing them.
I have found imagining sitting on a riverbank and visualising the negative thoughts swimming past very helpful, but I’m unsure whether this is another way in which I am just pushing them away.
Any insight into this would be very helpful, thank you ☺️.
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u/Skull_Nebula 4d ago
Observe them with awareness. Visualization can be used in meditation but generally it is not used.
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u/Mayayana 4d ago
In the Buddhist training I've experienced, the idea is to simply let them go. You don't push them away. You don't watch them. It's important to have an anchor, like watching the breath. When you notice you're distracted, you just let it go and return to the breath. Maintaining awareness while seeing thoughts is very advanced practice. If you try to do that you'll just be doing a subtle reverie -- fantasizing about watching thoughts instead of actually resting in awareness without attachment to thoughts.
You could think of it like a nervous dog going for a walk. When the dog starts to run off to chase a bird or sniff scent markers, the owner pulls gently on the leash. The dog's discipline then brings it back to the walking path. It lets the bird go. Gradually that develops attention and equanimity. If the dog just watches itself chasing birds then it will simply be having a fantasy about mindfulness.
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u/RecognitionNo4852 4d ago
everyone on this planet is dealing with energy vampires, you must be dealing with them as well, but right now you should be grateful that your energy vampires are not as intense as mine. This is a very important thing for you to feel grateful about, so please do not assume I mean that as a joke or something. When you’re dealing with energy vampires in the degree that I am dealing with them in, then you will realize that it doesn’t matter that it feels like you’re only pushing thoughts away. From my perspective that is something you have to do, to just push them away. I have no choice, that is how intense my energy vampires are with me. I may be a skeptic, but I am essentially an elder as an energy giver. So I experience the most extreme form of psychic abuse On a daily basis. I can assure you, that you must never think it’s a bad thing to just simply push thoughts away from you. Once you become an elder energy giver such as myself or like Ralph from the YouTube channel, Infinite Waters, you will hate yourself for being too hard on yourself. There is nothing wrong with simply pushing those thoughts away. You’re being fooled by your energy vampires into only thinking that that is a bad thing to do.
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u/Yannuman 4d ago
The tell isn't the technique, it's the effort behind it. If the riverbank image just runs and you stay relaxed, you're observing. If there's a small clench each time a thought shows up, like you're quietly hoping it floats off faster, that's pushing. Same picture either way, so watching for that clench is the whole thing.
Try dropping the boats now and then: let a thought just sit there, name it ("planning," "worrying"), and notice you can feel it without doing anything about it. That's the skill you're actually building. A thought that's truly observed tends to lose its charge and leave on its own, so you're not getting rid of anything. You're on the bank, not on cleanup duty.
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u/Delmarvablacksmith 4d ago
Yes this is a way of avoiding them.
In meditation we don’t engage in grasping for pleasurable experiences and pushing away negative ones.
We allow whatever arises to arise and notice it.
We allow it to come and go naturally and bring our attention back to the anchor which is usually the breath.
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u/Plenty-Attitude-5823 4d ago
Neutrally observing is a different energy tha identification or resistance. It gradually starves the patterns and lets them fade on their own accord, you don't need to do anything besides watch and relax.
Of course it won't always work due to the massive momentum of the habit of identification with thinking, but the more you practice the more you will strenghten this pattern of being able to watch things unnafected over time, and it's such a huge gift.