Meditation is not about building walls against thought… it’s actually the complete opposite. This quote flips the common misconception on its head, revealing that true meditation is about developing a relaxed awareness where thoughts simply come and go.
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Meaning
The core message is that meditation isn’t a battle to empty your mind, but a practice of observing your thoughts with detachment, letting them flow by without getting tangled up in them.
Explanation
Look, here’s the thing most people get wrong when they start. They sit down, try to “not think,” and when a thought inevitably pops in, they see it as a failure. They build this wall of concentration, trying to block everything out. And it’s exhausting.
What Goleman is pointing to is a much more subtle, and honestly, more powerful skill. It’s about shifting from being in the thought to being the awareness behind the thought. You notice the thought—”oh, I need to buy milk”—and instead of following that thread to your shopping list, you just gently let it dissolve. You don’t push it away. You don’t invite it in for coffee. You just acknowledge it and return to your anchor, your breath. That’s the real practice. It’s mental fitness.
Quote Summary
| Context | Attributes |
|---|---|
| Original Language | English (3668) |
| Category | Spiritual (229) |
| Topics | acceptance (73), awareness (126), thoughts (29) |
| Literary Style | minimalist (442) |
| Emotion / Mood | calm (491), reflective (382) |
| Overall Quote Score | 71 (53) |
Origin & Factcheck
This gem comes directly from Daniel Goleman’s 1988 book, The Meditative Mind: The Varieties of Meditative Experience. It’s a key text where he was synthesizing scientific research with meditative traditions long before his work on Emotional Intelligence blew up. You sometimes see this idea misattributed to random spiritual influencers, but the core articulation here is firmly Goleman’s.
Attribution Summary
| Context | Attributes |
|---|---|
| Author | Daniel Goleman (125) |
| Source Type | Book (4032) |
| Source/Book Name | The Meditative Mind: The Varieties of Meditative Experience (60) |
| Origin Timeperiod | Modern (530) |
| Original Language | English (3668) |
| Authenticity | Verified (4032) |
Author Bio
Daniel Goleman is a psychologist and bestselling author whose journalism at The New York Times brought brain and behavior science to a wide audience. He earned a BA from Amherst and a PhD in psychology from Harvard, and studied in India on a Harvard fellowship. Goleman’s research and writing helped mainstream emotional intelligence, leadership competencies, attention, and contemplative science. He co-founded CASEL and a leading research consortium on EI at work. The Daniel Goleman book list includes Emotional Intelligence, Working with Emotional Intelligence, Primal Leadership, Social Intelligence, Focus, and Altered Traits.
| Official Website
Where is this quotation located?
| Quotation | Meditation is not about building walls against thought but about learning to let thoughts pass without holding on to them |
| Book Details | Publication Year/Date: 1977 (originally as The Varieties of Meditative Experience, revised 1988 as The Meditative Mind); ISBN: 9780874778335; Last Edition: Tarcher/Putnam 1988; Number of pages: 320. |
| Where is it? | Approximate page from 1988 edition, Chapter 2: The Psychology of Meditation |