Meditation

There are many instruction videos on the internet about meditation, how to meditate, why meditate, and so on. This is not about some new technique or some new purpose of meditation, there is too much of that online already, instead this is about the basics.

There is one thing that everyone will agree separating meditation from sitting with closed eyes or sitting and stirring at something, and that is no thinking during meditation. To achieve that there is techniques like chanting, mantras, bells, drums, breathing and so on. Also there is also one thing that is usually described as the goal of meditation, and that is to be here and now, in the moment, which is harder to understand, and people spend endless hours meditating to achieve that without success.

As you might have guessed already, both above are closely related. If you never tried meditation, try to sit for 10 to 40 minutes, in such way that you can not fall asleep, and you will notice that the mind is never in the present time, it is in the future, planning, guessing outcomes, or it is in the past doing things differently, imagining what could happen if you did something differently, or it is solving problems, or it is somewhere else doing something else. Hence your mind is never here and now.

Why can't you be here and now and still be thinking? Well what do you have to think about when you are sitting and doing nothing? That's right there is nothing to think about if you are doing nothing, if you are thinking then you are not here and now where you do nothing but somewhere else in some different situation where thinking is required, which is often the future, what will I do when I am done meditating, well I must eat, for that I need to go and buy bread, and then I must, and so on.

Hence being here and now which is often described as being the goal of meditation, to feel that moment, necessarily implies not thinking about anything, since there is nothing to think about.

And as we know majority of the techniques of meditations (except some crazy ones), ultimately try to teach you to stop couscous thought.

And now it is obvious what meditation is, it is circular reasoning,
1. being in the moment --> no thinking,
hence
2. no thinking --> being in the moment.

What is unsaid but understood is this: no thinking <--> being in the moment, but for it to be true, both of the above must be true.

While first is quite easy to motivate why it is so, the second is not so obvious. It is also probably the reason for why people keep chasing this moment with endless hours of meditations and never seem to get there. But there are only two options from here, either:
no thinking --> being in the moment, then people are there in the moment all the time (assuming they mastered the no thinking part) without realizing it (perhaps because there is no conscious thought to think about it), and keep chasing it.
or
no thinking -|-> being in the moment, but there are still some people claiming to have experienced something special while meditating, feeling here and now, in the moment. Then being in the moment is something different and not connected to no thinking. This has two consequences first, there is no need to meditate to feel that feeling of being in the moment, it will just happen of it self if you are lucky, and second is what is then the point of sitting and not thinking about anything?

Hence:
No thinking <--> being in the moment, and everyone who is able not to think for a period of time has experienced that "moment of zen" but do not realize it.
or
?? --> Being in the moment
Being in the moment --> no thinking
no thinking --> ??
which simply is:
?? --> being in the moment --> no thinking --> ??

By looking at different kinds of instruction movies for meditation on the internet one can see which views on meditation they have, some believe in <--> relation claiming that by clearing you mind and keep practicing you will experience that moment of zen sooner or later, while others use second one and fill those ?? with love, cosmic energy, chakras, karma e.t.c.

Which one it true? I don't know.