Does eastern meditation help with critical thinking? The connection between meditation and logical reasoning might seem weird. The former refers to religious mysticism; the latter to rationality.
Of course, there are different kinds of meditation. A person can pray, sing mantras, think about divinity or concentrate on actions or ideas.
But behind all of these practices lies the same phenomenon. It is called mindfulness. One needs to pay full attention to some object. Actually, there is nothing mystical at all.
If you read an interesting book full attention is a very easy thing. But what if you need to concentrate on a boring topic? You will notice your mind wandering around. Different thoughts will fly through your consciousness.
It is not meditation yet. But here is a crucial element of a meditation. You need to train your mind to stay in focus.
In one form of a meditation, a person just concentrates on his own breathing. He tries to stop every thought that appears in his brain.
This exercise teaches the brain to be aware of thoughts and emotions; to realize this mental activity.
Then one day the person can separate the core of his consciousness from any thoughts and be somehow above all of them.
Such contemplation of his own psychical process is called reflective thinking.
Now according to one definition critical thinking is “...reasonable, reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do” (Robert H. Ennis. A Super-Streamlined Conception of Critical Thinking).
If it is so we can see how meditation helps us to develop very important skills for critical thinking.
What are these?
1. Ability to stay concentrated on some topic;
2. Ability to not be overwhelmed by emotions or thoughts;
3. Ability to monitor one’s thinking process.
Of course, critical thinking is more than that. After all, there are more people who are practicing meditation than people who are capable of using argumentation and making some reasonable decisions.
Here an analogy with sports would be appropriate. Every athlete needs physical strength and some special skills to win.
Well, meditation develops a kind of psychical strength but one needs mental techniques as well (such as rules of inference, awareness of fallacies etc).
Of course, there are different kinds of meditation. A person can pray, sing mantras, think about divinity or concentrate on actions or ideas.
But behind all of these practices lies the same phenomenon. It is called mindfulness. One needs to pay full attention to some object. Actually, there is nothing mystical at all.
If you read an interesting book full attention is a very easy thing. But what if you need to concentrate on a boring topic? You will notice your mind wandering around. Different thoughts will fly through your consciousness.
It is not meditation yet. But here is a crucial element of a meditation. You need to train your mind to stay in focus.
In one form of a meditation, a person just concentrates on his own breathing. He tries to stop every thought that appears in his brain.
This exercise teaches the brain to be aware of thoughts and emotions; to realize this mental activity.
Then one day the person can separate the core of his consciousness from any thoughts and be somehow above all of them.
Such contemplation of his own psychical process is called reflective thinking.
Now according to one definition critical thinking is “...reasonable, reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do” (Robert H. Ennis. A Super-Streamlined Conception of Critical Thinking).
If it is so we can see how meditation helps us to develop very important skills for critical thinking.
What are these?
1. Ability to stay concentrated on some topic;
2. Ability to not be overwhelmed by emotions or thoughts;
3. Ability to monitor one’s thinking process.
Of course, critical thinking is more than that. After all, there are more people who are practicing meditation than people who are capable of using argumentation and making some reasonable decisions.
Here an analogy with sports would be appropriate. Every athlete needs physical strength and some special skills to win.
Well, meditation develops a kind of psychical strength but one needs mental techniques as well (such as rules of inference, awareness of fallacies etc).
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