Thought “As an Object of Meditation”

From 6/23/25 Monday Night Dharma Talk with Dennis Warren: Thought as an Object of Meditation

To explore the relationship between meditation, practice, living and thought. It will work with a practice that helps us answer two questions:
How often do you directly experience being alive, and feeling alive?
How often are you thinking about what is happening while it is happening, or experiencing it through thoughts?

Some Thoughts for Practice

Using Thought as “an object of meditation” involves recognizing we are thinking, then shifting awareness from the content of thought to the Qualities of thoughts. 

The content of thought is not considered a “Right Object” of meditation. It points the mind into conceptual rather than direct, immediate, tangible experience in and thru the body. 

For purposes of starting to develop this approach to practice, the Qualities of thought can be described initially in two categories.

The first involves directly experiencing and exploring:

The many different sensory expressions of thought in the body and senses (location, size, temperature, movement and so on); and

The progressive body-based experiences of Dependent Origination: Feeling (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral), Craving (desire or aversion), Clinging (Attachment) and Becoming (identification and Personalization).

The second involves directly experiencing and exploring:

The nature of the thought: Organic (it just seems to appear on its own), Reactive (a more automatic, mechanical experience based on the appearance of some condition/s) or Intentional / Purposeful.

Time Reference: Past, Present or Future. This can include imaging.

Focus: Repetitive, Self-Centered (from the perspective of I Me Mine) or Story / Narrative Making

Just watching and experiencing with patience, and with as little judgment as possible, will result in important insights into thought-habits: where we are spending most of our thought time; the impact of different types of thought on our nervous system and body; the relationship of thought to reactive patterns and suffering; and many others. This insight will arise spontaneously through the process of directly exploring the Qualities of thought that appear in the field of awareness.

This approach is versatile because it can be used in meditation, reflection and during daily life.

Dennis Warren, Founding Teacher, Sacramento Insight Meditation