did you know that the etymology of the ordinary english word "meditation" has nothing to do with emptying the mind of thoughts - it is in fact about thinking - or with reducing "stress"
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idea for this tweet mostly cribbed from some john michael greer stuff
ecosophia.net/the-flight-fro
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let's take a look at the etymology of "stress" while we're at it
> "hardship, adversity, force, pressure," in part a shortening of Middle English distress (n.)
distress:
> late 13c., "circumstance that causes anxiety or hardship"
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"stress," which as a psychological term was apparently coined in the 1920s, sure is a convenient way to avoid having to name a feeling
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what stands out to me about the etymologies is that they aren't psychological. stress / distress have etymologies that are about *stuff happening in your life that is hard*. the psychological sense of "stress" retreats the meaning to something mental and internal to you
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the thing you do with hardships is to overcome them; the thing you do with "stress" is to "relax." world of difference between the two options, and it's the second one that doesn't require you to make any changes to your life
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let's take a look at the etymologies of "think" and "thought" too
> Old English þencan "imagine, conceive in the mind; consider, meditate, remember; intend, wish, desire"
> Old English þoht, geþoht "process of thinking, a thought; compassion"
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intend! wish! desire! compassion! what stands out to me about *these* etymologies is that they recognize no thinking / feeling distinction; a sense of thinking as something not detached, not attempting to stay third-person or objective or distanced
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There's a common usage "to meditate on" which means to spend time deliberately thinking about something"
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yup. half of meditation is emptying the mind of diverse thoughts and the other half is deliberate thinking/concentrating on one thing. implied in meditative discourse on a subject is emptying the mind of non pertinent thoughts and then of course focusing on the topic of discourse
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that one thing should be your highest unified conception of reality, maybe not at first but eventually either Self, Consciousness, God, Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, or humanity if the former are too hard