The ability to think is a gift. With practice, we can learn to use thinking to generate positive and beneficial mental states. However, thinking cannot bring into being radically new realizations. What we call intuition, revelation, or insight arises spontaneously not from thought, but from the silence and stillness of mind. Through study and careful reflection we can prepare the foundation, but for the arising of deep understanding, we need to feel intimately comfortable with the silence from which thought arises.