Although our tendency has been to regard imaginative mental capacities as secondary or less important in the overall operation of our minds, on close examination this turns out not to be true. When we are uncertain how to understand or explain something before us, we imagine how it might be, form plausible hypotheses, and then seek to confirm or falsify them. When faced with a problem, we imagine possible solutions and test them for their potential efficacy. When we need to know what to believe, we imagine plausible accounts of the issue and what might count as evidence in their favor or against them. Imagination functions in an astonishing range of human activities, from basic problem solving through the creative acts of art, music, and literature, to our own efforts to imagine ideals that are worthy of guiding our personal lives – the “thought of enlightenment.” By cultivating this central, meditative capacity, we open up dimensions of our lives we were previously unable to access. Those who do this skillfully position themselves in a more experimental relation to life, a posture less susceptible to dogmatic closure and open to a wider set of possibilities.