16/04/2026
To Think or Not to Think
The title of Ryunosuke Koike‘s book “The Practice of Not Thinking” immediately catches my attention.
Thinking needs practice. The exposing of our hidden assumptions, checking their validity, discovering loopholes in our logic. All these require practice.
But “not thinking”? Why should we practise and how?
In his book, Ryunosuke Koike—a former monk in Japan—attempts to explain these.
He suggests that it is the nature of the mind to seek stronger and stronger stimulation. Since negative thoughts are often more stimulating than neutral or positive ones, the mind has a tendency to return to negativity. Over time, people can fall into this pattern without noticing, which he calls “a thinking disease”.
Koike also argues that thinking consumes energy, so when we are caught in thought, our other senses—sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch—become dulled. As a result, the mind and body fall out of rhythm.
In addition, the more we overwork one part of the brain, the less we perceive physical information through our senses. Our sensory information becomes less and less adequate to counterbalance our negative thoughts.
His recommended practice is simple: periodically observe the movements and focus of our mind, and if we notice ourselves thinking unnecessary thoughts, gently but consciously shift our awareness back to one of the five senses. As attention returns to sensory experience, the unneeded thoughts usually begin to loosen their hold.
The practice, then, is to engage the senses more fully so that ordinary life becomes vivid again. For example:
- Instead of merely glancing at your loved ones, look at them as if for the first time.
- Instead of just hearing children making noise, listen closely to the quality of their voices;
- Instead of just touching your own skin, feel its temperature or texture.
Koike explains that focusing on a pure sensation is a pleasant experience, which comes not from a sense of physical pleasure but rather from “the comfort of a focused mental state where we have stopped processing information and remain within the feeling one has achieved”.
As he puts it: “There is a difference between touch and actually feeling. In a Buddhist context, it is the difference between forgetting and focusing.”
To think or not to think? Well clearly there is a time for everything. No one can function in the real world by sensing all day. And yet there is certainly great benefit if we can cultivate the ability to shake ourselves loose from intrusive and unhelpful thoughts, and we are then free to decide whether we want to use the space thus created to experience the joy of pure sensations or to engage in conscious productive thinking.
