Is self reflection/ contemplation good for you?
I ask this because I’ve come to infer some conflicting notions from the attempt of/ act of contemplation.
This namely comes from the issue of a). The quality of contemplation - is it constructive or destructive to your mental wellbeing? b) the definition of the term “good” in respect to contemplation - ie. how does one know for sure if the insights from meditation are useful, increase self awareness and placate potentially negative traits verses the concern that obsessing over ones condition could lead to negative cycles of thought, accidental acceptance or concentration on delusional beliefs and a false sense of knowledge/awareness.
As well as c). The relevancy of meditation to oneself or their nature in the external reality/ surrounding environment- a question of delineating that which applies to the self and that which doesn’t, where the boundary is between introspective thought processes and extrospective thoughts meet. In essence an understanding of what the “self” In question really is.
Consider someone who always (as far as they can know) thinks about external reality and spends little time reflecting on themselves - ie focuses on the opinions beliefs and decisions and conditions of others and the world verses someone who is preoccupied (again to the best of their knowledge) with themselves and pays little attention to the external environment around them - ie someone who only regards their own opinions, values and beliefs/experiences and much less those of other people and circumstances.
Herein lies the problem with determining whether one is “better” or more “good” than the other.
For example, we could imagine someone who focuses on others/ the external more than themselves as “unaware of themselves”, irresponsible/ avoiding accountability or appreciation of their own behaviour or Judgemental of others and circumstances with respect to themselves ... ie assuming that they don’t require to consider themselves and that they are somehow a status quo not worth being subject to critical evaluation but contrary to this we could also think of the same person as selfless, empathetic, a good listener, highly aware of the world for the same underlying principle - that they focus on the external - others views and the ways it the world around them more than their own values and needs.
It works for the opposite example to: someone preoccupied with themselves could be because a) they aren’t interested in/ don’t value others influences and have an over inflated sense of self importance, they are egocentric and selfish OR they could pre- occupied with themselves in a constructive way - am I good enough? Should this be the way I should behave, having doubt or anxiety about themselves and wish to know themselves better in order to take responsibility.
So is self reflection good? Or bad? Or is it always a mix. Or is it impossible to establish either case without the influence of the contrary side/ for example can we not be introspective if not only for the relationship we have with the external world and the feedback we get from the environment?
Is there such thing as a distinction between looking within and looking outwards or are they one in the same - simply looking in the first place.
This namely comes from the issue of a). The quality of contemplation - is it constructive or destructive to your mental wellbeing? b) the definition of the term “good” in respect to contemplation - ie. how does one know for sure if the insights from meditation are useful, increase self awareness and placate potentially negative traits verses the concern that obsessing over ones condition could lead to negative cycles of thought, accidental acceptance or concentration on delusional beliefs and a false sense of knowledge/awareness.
As well as c). The relevancy of meditation to oneself or their nature in the external reality/ surrounding environment- a question of delineating that which applies to the self and that which doesn’t, where the boundary is between introspective thought processes and extrospective thoughts meet. In essence an understanding of what the “self” In question really is.
Consider someone who always (as far as they can know) thinks about external reality and spends little time reflecting on themselves - ie focuses on the opinions beliefs and decisions and conditions of others and the world verses someone who is preoccupied (again to the best of their knowledge) with themselves and pays little attention to the external environment around them - ie someone who only regards their own opinions, values and beliefs/experiences and much less those of other people and circumstances.
Herein lies the problem with determining whether one is “better” or more “good” than the other.
For example, we could imagine someone who focuses on others/ the external more than themselves as “unaware of themselves”, irresponsible/ avoiding accountability or appreciation of their own behaviour or Judgemental of others and circumstances with respect to themselves ... ie assuming that they don’t require to consider themselves and that they are somehow a status quo not worth being subject to critical evaluation but contrary to this we could also think of the same person as selfless, empathetic, a good listener, highly aware of the world for the same underlying principle - that they focus on the external - others views and the ways it the world around them more than their own values and needs.
It works for the opposite example to: someone preoccupied with themselves could be because a) they aren’t interested in/ don’t value others influences and have an over inflated sense of self importance, they are egocentric and selfish OR they could pre- occupied with themselves in a constructive way - am I good enough? Should this be the way I should behave, having doubt or anxiety about themselves and wish to know themselves better in order to take responsibility.
So is self reflection good? Or bad? Or is it always a mix. Or is it impossible to establish either case without the influence of the contrary side/ for example can we not be introspective if not only for the relationship we have with the external world and the feedback we get from the environment?
Is there such thing as a distinction between looking within and looking outwards or are they one in the same - simply looking in the first place.
Comments (32)
When you reflect upon your thought patterns critically and assess whether they are the best they can be and if you see room for improvement dedicate yourself to making those improvements, then you become a better person, both for yourself and for the greater world you're a part of.
But that can also be a negative experience, to see oneself as an object in the world, as one must do in order to reflect upon oneself like that -- it can create thought loops, as it's literally a loop of thought, thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking ad nauseum -- and one can in doing so stop experiencing the world in a peaceful accepting way, and instead get caught up in this feedback loop.
Meditation is largely about letting go of the apprehension of oneself as an object in the world, and letting experiences flow through us, producing whatever behaviors, be they physical or mental, that they do, and just letting those happen and then be done, instead of thinking about thinking about ... thinking about thinking about them forever.
Like martial arts is not about always being in fast motion, but about effortlessly transitioning between stillness and fast motion, a well-honed mind can slip easily back and forth between self-reflective and "self-less" patterns of thought. In time, as the self-reflection refines one's automatic responses, and good thought and action become habitual and effortless, one can spend more time in the "self-less" pattern of just being and doing, only checking in with a bit of self-reflection now and then to make sure that everything is still operating correctly.
As children it's easy to be in that "self-less" mode of just being and doing, letting the world flow through you. Becoming a responsible adult is largely about cultivating self-reflection. But then learning how to be a happy mature adult is largely about not drowning in that self-reflection, and re-finding the ability to just be and do in a childlike way again, without losing the insights that the ability to self-reflect has given.
"Before one studies, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters."
Pfhorrest covered most of it.
Maybe I would add, you need something to reflect on. The "self" gets formed in relation to the world and to others... via your experiences.
There's nothing wrong with reflecting on your "self", on your experiences, from time to time, but if you do nothing else, you end up with nothing to reflect on.
The mistake is I think in thinking that by reason alone, or that 'in-ward looking'/introspection will bring you closer to some kind of true, pristine self, apart from the world.
You seem to take a psychological pov on self reflection. But you need to look at it structurally: pull away from the habitual self, and you are "out" of the self and its compulsory continuity. Do this enough, and the grip compulsive belief has on you slips, and in time the "world" begins to fall away, the familiar becomes alien for a certain distance between you and ordinary affairs has settled in, and once you've have gone this way, there is no turning back--one cannot turn off this "enlightenment".
Heidegger called the question the piety of thought, and this self reflection begins with a question, one that undermines the authority of everydayness and drives one to freedom (not talking about the principle of sufficient cause, here).
Carl Jung thought that solitude was a prerequisite for profound insight, for only outside of the circuitry of the self affirming values produced in a culture can one bring the whole affair to a halt. And the world can finally "speak".
Maybe being a friendless loner for most of my youth... and now most of my adulthood... basically every time besides my early 20s experiment in being a popular person... was actually good for me, then!
Very good points and very pertinent.
My 2 cents:
Of course virtue is in the middle and the right equilibrium between exploring the self and focusing on the outside as well, that said...
I think that christianity is much less selfish than oriental religions and cultures and is one of the keys of success of western societies vs oriental ones.
Oriental philosophies and religions have been too much oriented to the self and inner explorations while christianity has always been more oriented to the society, the good vs evil, help the others, etc.
This is not a black and white assertion but I think there is a lot of truth in it.
Perhaps more than simply good. It depends on what you read. We are what we read. One can either go analytic or Continental in philosophy. The former is a dead end, fun if you like rigorous thinking, useful in many of the penetrating arguments (like Quine's Two Dogmas and Indeterminacy of Translation), but afraid to go where human inquiry gets interesting, in the depth of meaning, the impossible presence of things, the threshold where thought and feeling encounter themselves.
Going out on a limb, you might like Jung's Red Book, Augustine's Confessions, Kierkegaard's either/Or, or even Pseudo Dionysus' Cloud of Knowing or even Eckhart's Sermons (Eckhart famously, or infamously wrote of prayer to God that he could be rid of God).
Or not. Up to you. My allies are perhaps not yours. As I see it, the religious world is filled with nonsense, but beneath this is the heart of our humanity. I am reading John Caputo's The Weakness of God and his How to Read Kierkegaard and Radical Hermeneutics.
We are what we read, literally.
It’s perfectly fine to be a “friendless loner”. It simply means that assuming you are philosophising or otherwise using your solitude constructively you have just chosen/ prefer a lifestyle of deep thought - something difficult to maintain when obligated to entertain others.
There are many that came before you that elected the same solitary existence and used the quietness and lack of distraction to great lengths and there will surely be many after you that choose the same. To be alone does not mean one is lonely... especially when we consider that these people keep the company of thought.
Haha interesting. Although I somewhat tend toward the idea that “we are what we take from a reading”... the same book does not invoke the same insights in everyone despite its attempt to point all in a unanimous direction. Wisdoms of the past offer a certain depth - an ambiguity of interpretation all of which is applicable to the useful appreciation of various minds. That is the power of literature - to invoke unavoidable contention and therefore debate based of a singular seemingly discrete text.
Language is as much interpretative as it is defined and direct.
Emphatically disagree. When I look out the window, I see the same things that everyone else does. Depending on what I'm seeing, and how others around me see those things, we might disagree on what they mean, or even what they are (was that a bird or a bat? A gunshot or a fire cracker?)
But introspection insofar as it comprises self-awareness or intentional reflection on oneself, is clearly of a different nature to the observation of things. There is no thing to observe - only the never-ending stream of thoughts, ideas and sensations as they arise and fade away. Of course idly day-dreaming or thinking about yourself may not contribute towards your mental well-being or self-knowledge, but being aware of your thoughts and feelings as they arise, rather than being triggered by them and then acting on them, is surely a sign of emotional maturity, at the very least. That's why there's the old saying, count to ten if you're about to loose your temper, because that will give the rational part of your mind time to influence your actions.
How can one emphatically disagree with a question. I asked a question and you replied I disagree. Furthermore you assume that everyone’s perception is equal but then go to say it results in alterior conclusions. When in fact perception itself is also different from one person to another. How do I know your colour red is the same as mine? Or someone tripping on a hallucinogen? I would imagine a bird is conceptually regarded as different to a colourblind person or to a blind person as to one with typical vision
Fair point, I meant to say - I disagree that self reflection/contemplation is destructive. The point I'm also trying to make is that self-awareness is not simply 'thinking about oneself', which can indeed often simply be egotism. I think there's a kind of disciplined self-awareness which is the subject of meditative discipline.
Wilhelm Wundt was the major founder of psychology. His psychological method was primarily based on introspection. But the problem with introspection and first-person reports were just as you say - that it was impossible to standardise criteria for what amounts to subjective judgement. The notion of introspection being compatible with scientific methodology was thrown out very early in the history of the discipline for that reason.
But that's where such explanatory frameworks as Buddhism are relevant. As you may know, 'mindfulness meditation' is grounded in Buddhist principles, albeit considerably adapted to current requirements. But the advantage of the Buddhist approach is that it has pretty clear set of standards and criteria for what is required in mindfulness practice, set within a broad philosophical framework. That's what is missing from discussion of 'contemplation'. Scientific method is fundamentally concerned with objective measurement, and so it really has no applicability in this domain. Yet without the mantle of scientific respectability, contemplation might really just amount to daydreaming, or self-obsession.
Interesting. I agree in the idea that self awareness isn’t specific to the ego - the point of awareness/ body mind essentially the person.
For example you could interact with a tribesman with a spiritual belief and ask them where do you believe the self is? To which he could reply “we are one with nature. The self is everywhere. I am only one piece of my whole self, the snake another, the river yet another and also the mountains.”
So in this sense we could say that being selfish vs selfless starts to become less distinct as in his case to be selfish is to preserve and take care of the whole self - nature beyond all individual pieces (egos)
Exactly! This I agree with in entirety
One thing that separates contemplation from vision is that you don't see a visible object. The object of contemplation is thought, imagined, felt etc. but it is not intentional in the sense that a visual object is. A visual object is intentional in the sense that it is actual, open to view, like these letters on this web page that we can see. The object of contemplation is never seen, only thought, imagined, felt etc.
Quoting Wayfarer
Exactly. One might add that we often use words that refer to perception (e.g. see, experience) in two different senses, and sometimes ambiguously, like above.
The interaction between contemplation and its expression in text, pictures, music etc. is often reported as constructive for the mental health of writers, graphic artists, musicians etc.
Quoting Benj96
If you want to know for sure whether something is useful, try to use it. Also inconsistent and false insights can be useful, for example, in political or religious contexts (iseful doesn't necessarily mean good).
Quoting Benj96.
There is thought, and there are various kinds of objects that one thinks about (e.g. actual, fictional, abstract). Thought and object are separated by the intentional relation between them (one being about the other, or directed towards it). That's a two part relation, not a boundary.
If contemplation is thought about itself, the thought adds itself as the object, as if it would be like other objects of thought. But it is a construct of the thought. I don't think one could think of one's own thought in the same sense that one thinks about, say, a cat or a triangle or the effects that one's thinking has on one's wellbeing.
Likewise, one could argue that the 'self' is a name we give the assumed thinker, regardless of its nature.
Like most activities, it can be done well or done poorly. The latter can famously result in analysis, paralysis. I think temperamentally some people are more inclined to maroon themselves in narcissistic, directionless soul searching than others. It’s probably also prudent to determine what is self reflection and what is self dramatisation.
I think there's great wisdom in this extract of your response. I do on a personal level believe i too often intellectualise what could be "simply do and simply be" and I do remember as a child how much freer I was from thinking about things and there was enjoyment to be had in that state. I'll take this on board and find balance hopefully between the adulting mind and "will" of the inner child so to speak.
That is beautiful. As someone who is naturally introverted I often find solitude of great solace. And you're right, the psychologically is certainly one approach to the self ot makes sense to explore all approaches for their individual merits.
I would be inclined to agree. Remove the layers of dogmatic jargon, dig deep and at the heart of most religions and spiritual beliefs is humanity itself. The desire not only to understand who we are and where we came from, but to go one step further, and aspire to be better to ourselves and our world.
Many scriptures are at this stage just old stories, interpretative at most. But the underlying core, the thread that unifies them all, appears to be singing the same concrete hymn, one that is no less applicable today than when they were first written.
Succinct haha :)
That's a very apt point. I have encountered many people who would adamantly insist on their virtues of self reflection and yet I couldn't shake the feeling that it was more smoke and mirrors than anything else. I'm sure they aspired to the notion of self reflection but in assuming the goal was reached without the hard graft they simply rendered themselves quite arrogant and overly self assured.
My, potentially unique, perspective, for what it may be worth to you.
By self reflection, you are already creating the conditions which may be contradicting what you are truly after (I am being presumptuous regarding what you may be "after"). "self" reflection already imposes the limiting adjunct "self" onto the reflection.
If, by self, you intend to mean the Subject; the one which appears to occupy the driver's seat in all narratives in which you partake, then we are doing that almost consistently, and a deeper, more focused reflection will only yield like results concerning the mundane, the "space" that subject occupies. No matter how seemingly profound an insight, it will be an insight about the Subject and the mundane world it occupies.
If by self-reflection, you mean, reflection into (for lack of a better, or more readily accessible word, given the time frame) the real Being "you" (i.e., not this mundane self) are, then the process is not as we usually think. Western "metaphysicians," from Descartes to Heidegger were not, in my humble estimation, engaging in that.
Any reflection employing language etc., is not a reflection upon that. In fact, I submit, reflection upon that "Being" (please remember I do not purport here to conclusively define that so called Being, by using the term "Being"), does not even require reflection. The conventional ideas about reflection (i.e., deeply observing and focusing on your inner mind or that mundane self, the subject) amounts to observing the stories more closely. It is not "located" in "presence," but, rather, takes place in re-presentation, and uses, as its tools, re-presentation. This is by no means futile, but it yields insight only into becoming, into the story.
"Reflection" which "aims" at that so called real "Being" does not require reflection at all. Re-flecting, is re-presentating. Rather it is in be-ing. That is where that (hypothetical) reality is "located," in presence, in being, not becoming.
So how do you do that? I submit, Zazen, and specifically, Soto Zazen has come up with the closest "technique". But I am delivering it here, without reviewing Soto literature, without providing academic reference etc. This is not a scholarly depiction of Soto, but rather my interpretation.
You do not count your breaths, remind yourself you are breathing, or repeat the phrase "breathing," nor any variation. You do not make effort to empty mind of the stories. They will carry on just as your body carries on while the stories are front and center. What you do is simply become the breathing. And you are not really becoming, because you always were anyway. You focus that aware-ing body which has always subsisted and will continue to do so until it is extinguished, on breathing. You are not Benj96, you are not a tennis player, doctor, accountant, or brother/sister; you are not even an aspiring zen disiciple. You are not refecting, not constructiong, not setting out to attain Satori and with that super power, save all sentient beings. You are (just) breathing (neither as noun, adjective, or present participle verb); organism living, its organic aware-ing focused on its living.
I think you might discover that the "seat" of your being has always been there, and always will (until it is extinguished).
Extreme clarity here, Tom. Nice :up:
This speaks to some of what I have been getting at in other threads where we've fallen short of coming to terms. Some temperaments are destined to wallow in their self-identity, and its a detriment at that point.
Self-reflection is good. Remember that in philosophy, the notion of the self can only be understood if at the same time we have a notion of "us" -- others. The contemplation of self is actually a modern occurrence in the history of human mind. It came later.
Indeed. That's a very astute observation.
Blame the movements of rationalism and mechanistic world for that bit of analytical snobbery. :wink: The farther removed the philosophy from the human touch, the better.
The classical philosophy shouldn't be among that group, however, because they really did connect the philosophical thinking to the human nature. Aristotle and Socrates. Also, let's not forget the Stoics and the Cynics