[aaimnr]

There are things that one _should_ understand intellectually. You need some kind of a map, even very general.

There are three types of knowledge in Buddhist tradition - information you acquired from others, information you intellectually grasped and finally information from direct experience, insight. Each requires some amount of the previous kind to form.

You're right that we are not in direct control of our minds and we don't understand it directly as much as we think we do, but we can understand some important general causal principles which allow to learn how to influence the mind through the right causes.

So it's not about not thinking at all, it's about right kind of thinking. We need thoughts, right constructs, to point the mind in the right direction. As in the raft simile - only on the other shore we can let these skillful constructs go.