Having meditated regularly over the past 20 years or so, I would consider meditation to be a deeper form of prayer that has cleared my mind and aided in gleaning insight from the careful introspection which has accompanied it.
However, meditation is not like addressing God, then making a request of him, and closing with an 'Amen.' Instead, it has been the way that I focus on my breathing, while letting go of clinging to the thoughts which continue on dancing in my head.
While I do not know when I realized that there is no way in the world to stop thinking, it is possible to ignore most of my thoughts, except for the thoughts which I cling to and build into prose about stuff that is very interesting to me.
By letting go of clinging to my thoughts, I arrive at what might be called "no-thought" as in "no thought do I cling to, lest I forget about meditation." Having not clung to a single thought, it is like I have been freed from thinking itself.
It is as though the freedom that meditation provides is found by rendering sedate the mind so that it can clearly see the way, rather than being distracted by the monkey mind, untrained and striving for freedom.
For freedom exists within the framework of rules. Without rules, there is only licentiousness, the mother of true chaos.
Yet that chaos can be rendered null and void through meditation, which clears the mind and helps to focus it on liberation from the very same rules that helps the devotee reach Nirvana.
Only then can the devotee let go freely without regret, knowing that all those years of sitting on his ass has paid off.
For meditation has freed my mind from thinking, so that I may think more clearly about specific thoughts such as liberation of the mind. It begins with the thought that the mind is essentially free to think, and does so almost all the time while I am awake.
Perhaps when I am asleep, the mind may think but I am not aware of those thoughts, even though they may arise during a dream.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, i have actively meditated for over 20 years. When once it was difficult to meditate, quite possibly because I was doing it wrong, now it is almost too easy to meditate and enter the "zone". The key to meditation is to smile with joy, and work from there.
Too often have I seen stern-faced meditators trying to achieve satori. Believe me when I tell you, a smile might make the difference between thinking and being freed of clinging to thinking.
Indeed, a smile leads to liberation.
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