ELEVEN

MINDFULNESS IN THE MIND SCIENCES AND IN BUDDHISM

SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL REJECTION OF INTROSPECTIVE MINDFULNESS

At the dawn of the scientific study of the mind, William James embraced a method of inquiry consistent with all other branches of science, namely the direct observation of the phenomena of interest with maximum care, precision, and sophistication. While acknowledging the value of indirectly studying the mind by way of its neural influences and behavioral expressions, he took the radically empirical approach of placing the highest priority on direct observation of mental states and processes themselves. Such observations must be as free as possible of dogmatic biases, both dualistic and materialistic, so that theory is guided by observed phenomena rather than being predetermined by the classes of phenomena that are scientifically sanctioned.

Although the Introspectionist movement was fraught with many theoretical and methodological challenges, the reasons for its demise early in the twentieth century were largely ideological rather than pragmatic.¹ The direct observation of objective, physical, quantifiable phenomena had played a central role in the tremendous progress made by science since the early seventeenth century. Philosophy, in contrast, had made no comparable progress in developing effective methods to directly observe the subjective, intangible, qualitative phenomena of the mind. The conclusion drawn by many materialists at the turn of the twentieth century was that the only way to study the mind was to focus on objective, physical, quantifiable phenomena, for only they were real.

Early psychologists were faced with a choice. Either they could prioritize the inductive ideal of empiricism and utilize a combination of first-person and third-person observations to formulate fresh hypotheses and theories of the mind, or they could prioritize the deductive ideal of scientific materialism and follow its ideological principles to determine what qualified as experiential observations. In the early twentieth century, the pioneering behaviorist John B. Watson opted for the latter, more dogmatic approach, and this set the course for the development of behavioral psychology over the next sixty years. B. F. Skinner, perhaps the most influential behaviorist, advocated a stance diametrically opposed to that of William James. Skinner took as his basis the materialistic assumption that all one feels or introspectively observes consists of conditions of one’s body. From this ideological basis, it follows that we must understand in purely physical terms both the perceptual process of seeing and the metacognitive process of seeing that we see. Following the consequences of this deductive logic, the term “mind” is replaced by “brain,” and the person can then be equated with the brain. This method of inquiry permits only objective, physical, quantifiable observations to be called facts. The subjective, intangible, qualitative phenomena that are observed when one directly examines mental states and processes were dismissed as unimportant parts of a physiological process.²

Philosopher John Searle sums up the consequences of this rejection, or at least marginalization, of the first-person experience of the mind:

It would be difficult to exaggerate the disastrous effects that the failure to come to terms with the subjectivity of consciousness has had on the philosophical and psychological work of the past half century. In ways that are not at all obvious on the surface, much of the bankruptcy of most work in the philosophy of mind and a great deal of the sterility of academic psychology over the past fifty years . . . have come from a persistent failure to recognize and come to terms with the fact that the ontology of the mental is an irreducibly first-person ontology.³

Given his acknowledgment of the vital importance of subjective experience of states of consciousness, one might expect Searle to embrace William James’s advocacy of the primacy of introspection for understanding the mind. Nevertheless, ironically and illogically, Searle then reverses course and denies the very possibility of “specting intro” with respect to one’s own mind. His dubious rationale for rejecting this obvious component of human experience is that when it comes to states of consciousness, no distinction can be made between the object “spected” and the “specting” of it.⁴ He summarizes his position with the assertion that our modern, materialistic model of reality and of the relation between reality and observation cannot accommodate the phenomenon of subjectivity. Rather than inductively seeking to scientifically accommodate subjective phenomena, he deductively resorts to an uncritical allegiance to the dogmatic principles of materialism.

The religious tenacity with which modern scientists and philosophers cleave to materialistic dogma—thereby blinding themselves to a first-person perspective—is strikingly oppressive. To draw an analogy, it’s as if we are endowed with two eyes with which to see the universe: the left eye that surveys the objective, physical, quantifiable phenomena in the outside world, and the right eye that observes the subjective, intangible, qualitative phenomena of the inner mind. Jesus declared, “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”⁵ Since John Watson’s time, the right eye of introspection has led materialists to stumble into a morass of inexplicable mind-body causal interactions; therefore, they have metaphorically torn it out and thrown it away. For a materialist, it is better to lose this mode of observation along with the resulting depth perception than to be thrown into the hell of mind-body dualism.

One line of defense by behaviorists against such criticism is that subjective, intangible, qualitative phenomena of the mind, such as mental images, simply don’t exist, so there’s nothing to observe inwardly. This was Watson’s position, and it may have resulted in part from the fact, later reported by Skinner, that Watson didn’t experience any mental imagery himself.⁶ He took his own cognitive impairment as the norm and refuted the existence of what he hadn’t personally experienced. Skinner adopted a similar view regarding dreams, which he said should be understood not as a display of things seen by the dreamer but simply as the behavior of seeing. He justified this with the comment, “It took man a long time to understand that when he dreamed of a wolf, no wolf was actually there. It has taken him much longer to understand that not even a representation of a wolf is there.”⁷ By flatly denying that dreamers mentally “see” any mental representations or images, behaviorists could simply eliminate dreams from their analysis.

The dominance of such reductionist views in academic psychology and analytical philosophy of mind has stunted the development of the science and philosophy of mind. Proponents of reductionism are hampered by the dogmatic assumptions of scientific materialism, and at least some, such as Watson, are metacognitively challenged as well. Nevertheless, not everyone suffers from these mental impairments, and it is terribly limiting to regard blindness in one’s inner vision as the norm.

SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF INTROSPECTIVE MINDFULNESS

Despite the fierce resistance from behaviorists, the existence of mental imagery, including dream appearances, which become particularly obvious during lucid dreams, has now been well established in the field of cognitive psychology. Likewise, the existence of “metacognitive monitoring” has been widely accepted in personality and social psychology.⁸ Clinical psychology too has increasingly cast off the methodological and ideological constraints of behaviorism and scientific materialism. Even during the heyday of behaviorism, psychodynamic therapists were trained through personal therapy that used introspection to enhance awareness of their own feelings, thoughts, fantasies, tendencies, sensitivities, and so on. In addition to this subjective aspect of their training, such therapists today study intersubjective attention and discernment, which comprises the intersubjective field of therapist and patient, recognizing and exploring their mutual influences via transference, projection, and inner defenses.⁹ Over the past few decades, research into these aspects of psychotherapy has been structured and systematized and is being correlated with neuroimaging studies.¹⁰ Such studies have revealed that the medial prefrontal cortex—the sole region of the prefrontal cortex that is disproportionately larger in humans than in other primates—is associated with self-awareness, and it seems to be critical for thinking about oneself and reflecting on one’s preferences and values.

Mindfulness-based therapies also make excellent use of introspection in treating mental problems.¹¹ Jon Kabat-Zinn, who has taken a seminal role in the development of such therapies, describes mindfulness as “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment.”¹² Clinical psychologists have discovered that the loss of this introspective capacity is more damaging to the personality than the loss of a sensory faculty or motor functions, for it plays a crucial role in acquiring and maintaining complex types of behavior and in adapting to changing conditions.¹³ A growing number of cognitive neuroscientists have also concluded that people’s ability to introspectively monitor and modulate their emotions and behavior enables them to meet the socioemotional demands of daily life.¹⁴

Finally, in contrast to analytical philosophers like Daniel Dennett, John Searle, and Peter Hacker, some phenomenologists and other philosophers take introspection seriously and appreciate the value of meditation in exploring the mind, including Evan Thompson, Francisco Varela, and Jonathan Shear.¹⁵ Modern scientists and philosophers are gradually emerging from the darkness of scientific materialism by acknowledging, as William James proposed more than a century ago, the importance of introspection for gaining a thorough understanding of the mind. In this way, a three-dimensional perspective on the depths of subjective experience is restored when the left eye of objective observation is complemented by the right eye of introspection.

BUDDHIST CONCEPTS OF MINDFULNESS

Apart from the early seventeenth-century development of natural philosophy, which we now call “natural science,” Western philosophy as a whole has never been able to produce a body of consensual knowledge. Furthermore, unlike science, it has rarely developed practical applications of its theories that have been of general use to humanity. A crucial difference between science and philosophy is that the former relies heavily on direct, sophisticated, and repeatable observations of the phenomena under investigation, while the latter has never devised any such empirical methods for its domains of inquiry, including the mind. In contrast, Buddhist philosophy is incomplete without the utilization and refinement of one’s faculties of direct observation, and no mental faculty is more important in this regard than mindfulness.

According to Theravadin Buddhism, the Buddha defined mindfulness (Pali sati; Skt. smriti) as the faculty of remembering, or recalling what was done and said in the past, and this primary meaning recurs in later Abhidhamma treatises.¹⁶ The great commentator Buddhaghosa adds that “its characteristic is not floating, its property is not disengaging from one’s chosen object of attention, its manifestation is the state of being face to face with the object, and its basis is strong noting.” It should be seen, he writes, “as being like a post due to its state of being set in the object, and as like a gatekeeper because it guards the gate of the eye and so on.”¹⁷ The fifth-century Indian Mahayana Buddhist scholar and contemplative Asanga, a leading authority in both Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, defines mindfulness as “the non-forgetfulness of the mind with respect to a familiar object, having the function of non-distraction.”¹⁸ This definition obviously coincides closely with those from the Theravadin tradition. Finally, in the Zen Buddhist tradition, the corresponding term (Jap. nen) is glossed in a similar way as “remembrance, reminiscence, thinking of or upon, calling to mind, memory.”¹⁹

Despite minor differences in theories and practices among the various schools of Buddhism, there is a strong consensus in their definitions of mindfulness. In contrast to this unified cluster of traditional Buddhist definitions, modern clinical psychologists have defined mindfulness as nonjudgmental, present-centered awareness in which whatever arises to attention is accepted as it is. Although this definition is stated to be of Buddhist origin, there is no basis for this claim. Rather, it appears that promoters of the Modern Vipassana Movement (MVM) adapted this definition from Jiddu Krishnamurti’s (1895–1986) concept of “choiceless awareness.” Insisting that this is the “only way” to know the true nature of reality, he defined it as the observation of whatever is occurring in the present moment, without any reaction, resistance, justification, or condemnation. Such awareness entails no remembrance, recollection, recognition, or naming, and it is free from ideas, ideals, opinions, prejudice, likes, dislikes, and motives.²⁰ There is no Pali term corresponding to “choiceless awareness,” so there are no grounds for claiming that this is a traditional Buddhist insight practice.

Even though Buddhist meditative practices do exist in which such awareness is cultivated, Krishnamurti’s definition is incompatible with all traditional Buddhist definitions of mindfulness, while it accords perfectly well with the modern psychological definition and that of the MVM. Although it is false to equate this with the Buddhist understanding of mindfulness, it is an even greater mistake to equate it with Buddhist vipashyana meditation, regardless of how commonly this is done.

Some MVM teachers propose that instead of relying on traditional definitions of mindfulness as they are presented in authoritative Buddhist texts, we should denote mindfulness with whatever terms in English best express the practical experience of mindfulness when it is developed according to classical instructions. They argue that as the practice of vipashyana moves from one culture to another, different terms and images will best express the essence of the mind states involved. But before embracing this attitude, it’s important to remember that during the first 2,500 years after the Buddha’s time, “classical instructions” on vipashyana were traditionally given to dedicated meditators who had deep faith in the Buddha, the Dharma he taught, and the Buddhist community, the sangha. In stark contrast, MVM instructors commonly teach vipashyana to people with little or no faith or knowledge of Buddhism; consequently, they invariably delete large sections of the Buddha’s teachings on the four applications of mindfulness that are unappealing or too difficult for novices to practice. As a close reading of the Buddha’s Discourse on the Applications of Mindfulness (Pali Satipatthana Sutta),²¹ together with its ancient commentaries, reveals, the “classical instructions” of the MVM are quite different from the “classical instructions” of the Buddha. Modern secular people can easily relate to certain elements of this discourse, such as the practices of “remembering” the present moment of experience in the sense of coming face to face with the object, not floating off into distracting thoughts, and simply being attentive to the bare experience of the immediate sensations of the body, feelings, and so on. But such bare attention constitutes only a fraction of the meditative practices taught in the Buddha’s discourses. Meditators who create new definitions of mindfulness on the basis of their own experience of this highly simplified version of vipashyana will naturally come to the conclusion that the essence of mindfulness is nothing more than bare attention. Such logic is circular.

Other MVM proponents have suggested that the ancient meaning of mindfulness, which includes retention, recollection, or memory, as in keeping the object of attention firmly in mind and knowing when it has wandered, is a limited notion confined to Tibetan Buddhism. Rather than upholding this early meaning, they suggest that the definition of mindfulness might change over time as the Dharma enters new cultures, as it now does once again. In this process, they argue, we might legitimately expand the meaning of the term in the English language to be a sort of placeholder for the Dharma itself. This is seen as a skillful means for catalyzing a more universal understanding of the mind and its potential for wisdom, compassion, and freedom. But will this new “mindfulness” truly lead to the fulfillment of our individual capacities to realize our true nature in this lifetime—resulting in liberation?

As noted above, the sense of mindfulness as retention, recollection, or memory is common to Theravada, Zen, and Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, all of which trace this meaning back to the Buddha’s own teachings as recorded in Pali and Sanskrit. With its traditional definition, mindfulness is a crucial element of the Noble Eightfold Path, and the dynamic synergy between mindfulness and introspection (Pali sampajañña) is essential for the practice of both shamatha and vipashyana. Therefore, although people are free to newly define “mindfulness” as a placeholder for the Dharma, it is standing in for their own teaching, not the Buddha Dharma.

Finally, some MVM teachers continue to insist that the description of “momentary concentration” (Pali khanika-samadhi), as discussed in Buddhaghosa’s classic, The Path of Purification, is right in line with the experience of mindfulness as bare attention paid to rapidly changing objects. This assertion is representative of their claim that one can reap the full benefits of vipashyana on the basis of momentary concentration, without achieving even the first dhyana. In a classic commentary on The Path of Purification, momentary concentration is defined as “concentration lasting only for a moment. For that too, when it occurs uninterruptedly on its object in a single mode and is not overcome by opposition, fixes the mind immovably as if in absorption.”²² A crucial point, often overlooked by modern teachers, is that this reference to momentary concentration refers to a passage in The Path of Purification describing a stage of practice that follows the achievement of at least the first dhyana!²³ The Theravada scholar Kheminda Thera clarifies this point, stating that momentary concentration “occurs only after the insight of the third purification, Purification of View, which already pre-supposes completion of the second purification as its proximate cause; and . . . even then it is the prerogative solely of the jhana attainer and thus cannot serve as a substitute for jhana.”²⁴ In short, the Buddha clearly indicated the indispensability of the first dhyana in order to achieve liberation,²⁵ but he never mentioned momentary concentration or suggested that it provides a sufficient basis in samadhi to gain the full benefits of vipashyana.

The Buddha also never drew a distinction between absorption concentration (Pali appana-samadhi), which comes with the full attainment of dhyana, and access concentration (Pali upachara-samadhi), which precedes that full attainment. However, later Theravada and Mahayana contemplatives, drawing from their own meditative experiences, have found this distinction useful. Some eminent Indian and Tibetan Mahayana Buddhist contemplatives, including Ashvaghosha (fl. 80–150 C.E.) and Tsongkhapa, assert that in terms of samadhi, access concentration is a sufficient basis for achieving liberation.²⁶ Other Buddhist references actually refer to the practice of vipashyana after the attainment of access concentration, following which dhyana is fully achieved. This is also the most plausible meaning of the Theravadin Buddhist term “dry insight” (Pali sukkha-vipassana), used by the commentators to denote vipashyana supported by access concentration alone, without the “moisture” of absorption concentration.

Just as many people nowadays disregard the authoritative, traditional definitions of mindfulness in favor of new definitions based on their own experience, they tend to create new definitions of access concentration and the full achievement of the dhyanas. In the Theravadin commentaries, the distinction between access and absorption concentration hinges on the difference between a mental image, or sign, of the meditative object called the acquired sign (Pali uggaha-nimitta), upon which one focuses until achieving access concentration, and the counterpart sign (Pali patibhaga-nimitta), which appears with the achievement of access concentration. In the practice of mindfulness of breathing, one first focuses on the tactile sensations of the breath, but eventually the acquired sign arises as a mental image, taking on forms such as cotton wool, a bright point or orb of light, a wreath of flowers, a puff of smoke, a cobweb, a film of mist, a lotus, a chariot wheel, a moon, or a sun.²⁷ One focuses on this acquired sign until the counterpart sign appears, which is said to be a subtle, emblematic representation of the whole quality of the air element.²⁸ Buddhaghosa explains:

The counterpart sign appears as if breaking out from the acquired sign, and a hundred times, a thousand times more purified, like a looking-glass disk drawn from its case, like a mother-of-pearl dish well washed, like the moon’s disk coming out from behind a cloud, like cranes against a thunder cloud. But it has neither color nor shape . . . it is born only of perception in one who has obtained concentration, being a mere mode of appearance.²⁹

According to Buddhaghosa, it is extremely difficult to sustain attention on this very subtle mental image, so the mind loses the counterpart sign and slips back into the ground of becoming (Skt. bhavanga). He likens this to a young child who is lifted up and stood on his or her feet but repeatedly falls down on the ground. If one wishes to proceed beyond access concentration to absorption concentration or the actual state of the first dhyana, one must steadfastly focus on the counterpart sign until one can sustain concentration on it “for a whole night and for a whole day, just as a healthy man, after rising from his seat, could stand for a whole day.”³⁰

In stark contrast to this authoritative account of the difference between the acquired sign and counterpart sign, some MVM teachers declare that the primary difference between the acquired sign and the counterpart sign is that the former is usually dull and opaque, while the latter is brilliant and clear. Some add that if you can keep your mind on the counterpart sign for one, two, or three hours, you have reached either access or absorption concentration. Such descriptions are clearly incompatible with Buddhaghosa’s account of the two kinds of signs and the difference between access and absorption concentration. Degraded meanings are all too prevalent when modern meditators insist on identifying and classifying their individual meditation within a Buddhist framework. Instead of practicing until their own experiences meet the standards of the great contemplatives of the past, they downgrade the Buddhist definitions of mindfulness, the counterpart sign, access concentration, and absorption concentration to conform to their own particular experiences.

It is no wonder that modern practitioners who abandon traditional Buddhist theory and practice often lose faith in the traditional Buddhist understanding of liberation. Some people then conclude that traditional Buddhist accounts of the enlightenment of the Buddha and other Eastern sages are “misleading,” for we can never transcend the world of change. This view is reinforced by the Freudian belief that psychological conditioning inevitably warps the personality so that a conflict-free stage of human life with permanent mental purification is impossible. Conflict and suffering are seen as inevitable aspects of human existence. This is precisely the view held by Freud:

When I have promised my patients help or improvement by means of cathartic treatment I have often been faced by this objection: “Why, you tell me yourself that my illness is probably connected with my circumstances and the events of my life. You cannot alter these in any way. How do you propose to help me then?” And I have been able to make this reply: “No doubt fate would find it easier than I do to relieve you of your illness. But you will be able to convince yourself that much will be gained if we succeed in transforming your hysterical misery into common unhappiness. With a mental life that has been restored to health you will be better armed against that unhappiness.”³¹

In contrast to the modern psychoanalytic tradition, the Buddha’s teachings on the third noble truth declare nirvana to be the complete cessation of suffering and its inner causes. The possibility of liberation in this lifetime is unequivocally asserted. The Buddha described nirvana as a dimension of existence that is not born, not brought into being, not made, and not conditioned. Without it, there would be no possibility of liberation from the cycle of rebirth in a world that is born, brought into being, made, and conditioned.³²

It is hard to understand how people can call themselves Buddhists while rejecting the Buddha’s teachings on nirvana as freedom from the world of change and conflict. For example, a Darwinist is commonly regarded as someone who accepts the Darwinian theory that species originate by natural selection based on reproductive success. A Freudian is someone who accepts the theories of Sigmund Freud, including the existence of the subconscious, the role of the libido, and so on. Following that trend, it would be reasonable to define a Buddhist as someone who accepts the fundamental tenets of the Buddha, as presented in the accounts of his teachings, the Dharma, which have been preserved and taught by his followers, the sangha. It would make no sense to refute natural selection while calling oneself a Darwinian, and it makes just as little sense to reject the immutable reality of nirvana, as taught in all schools of Buddhism, while calling oneself a Buddhist.

The above definitions suggest a cognitive commitment to the teachings of Darwin, Freud, and the Buddha, but this misses a crucial point. In the Buddhist tradition, one entrusts oneself, or takes refuge (Skt. sharana), in the Buddha, Dharma, and sangha in terms of one’s pursuit of freedom from suffering and the realization of genuine happiness. This is more like the relationship between patient and doctor than between student and teacher. One may distrust the sangha, beginning with the first council of five hundred arhats who recited the Buddha’s words right after his death, believing they have misrepresented his teachings. One may distrust the Dharma, as expressed in the historically reliable accounts of the Buddha’s teachings. One may distrust the Buddha as he is portrayed in the Pali and Sanskrit sutras. We are all free to trust or distrust as we choose, but if we do not trust in the Buddha, Dharma, and sangha, it is misleading to call ourselves Buddhists. Whether or not Buddhist practice truly culminates in the complete purification of the mind from all mental afflictions and obscurations is indeed a matter of belief; nevertheless, it is misguided for Buddhists to wait for others to demonstrate the validity of this belief.

MINDFULNESS PRACTICE IN BUDDHISM

Enmeshed Mindfulness

Common ground between Buddhist concepts of mindfulness and those of modern psychology can be found in the Tibetan Buddhist practice variously known as “shamatha focused on the mind,” “settling the mind in its natural state,” “taking the mind as the path to liberation,” and “taking appearances and awareness as the path.” This process is simultaneously diagnostic—learning the nature of one’s own mind and of consciousness itself—and therapeutic—healing the mind until it settles into a natural state of sublime health and balance. When one attains shamatha, the ordinary mind dissolves into the substrate consciousness, which is characterized by bliss, luminosity, and nonconceptuality.

Düdjom Lingpa, the nineteenth-century Dzogchen master, gives a detailed, compelling explanation of this practice in his “mind treasure” (Tib. terma) The Vajra Essence.³³ In this account, mindfulness is focused on the domain of the mind and whatever thoughts or other mental events arise within that space. Düdjom Lingpa describes different kinds of mindfulness that come into play in the course of this practice: “Mindfulness is presented as being like a cowherd, and thoughts as being like cows. Their steady, vivid manifestation, without interruption by various expressions of hope, fear, joy, and sorrow is called enmeshed mindfulness.”³⁴ Likening the mind to a cripple and the body’s closely associated vital energies to a blind, wild stallion, he advises that both are to be controlled and subdued with the reins of mindfulness and introspection.

In this practice, single-pointed mindfulness is to be sustained to the best of one’s ability, without distraction and without grasping. The term “grasping” refers to any kind of labeling, identification, or emotional reactions of hope, fear, and so on that commonly arise in response to various mental appearances. One common type of grasping has been aptly called “cognitive fusion” by modern psychologists. This occurs when one’s very sense of identity fuses with one’s thoughts. Attention is then diverted away from the immediate occurrence of thoughts themselves in the space of the mind and toward the referents of these thoughts. For example, when an image of a loved one’s face spontaneously comes to mind, attention is to remain focused on that image itself. But when cognitive fusion occurs, awareness is distracted from the mental image to the actual person, wherever he or she might be.

It is very challenging and sometimes stressful to devote oneself to full-time, solitary practice for many hours each day, for weeks or months on end, without entertainment or other distractions. We are accustomed to letting our attention roam at will and to occupying our minds with all kinds of outer and inner entertainment. In the Buddhist literature, such distractions are sometimes referred to as the abode of Mara, the tempter. In this practice, withdrawal symptoms can sometimes be as fierce as those evoked by quitting an addictive drug “cold turkey.” The habituated mind reacts to such discipline with great resistance, as the Buddha declared: “The wise one straightens the fluttering, unsteady mind, which is difficult to guard and hard to restrain, just as a fletcher straightens an arrow shaft. Like a fish that has been taken out of its watery abode and thrown onto dry land, this mind flutters and trembles when it is removed from the abode of Mara.”³⁵

For this reason, two indispensible prerequisites for the successful practice of settling the mind in its natural state are contentment and few desires. Engaging in this practice, it is imperative to know that one is meditating correctly. Once confidence is established, the challenge is simply to continue meditating in a spirit of desireless contentment. Following are the indications that one is on the right track:

•Awareness rests in the immediate present.

•Attention is focused on the domain of the mind.

•As soon as a mental event, thought, or image arises, it is noted.

•While observing mental events coming and going, awareness remains still and unmoved by the grasping of either desire or aversion.

In such practice, some people initially find it easiest to recognize sensory-based mental imagery. Others have no problem noting discursive thoughts, but many find it difficult to attend to desires and emotions without cognitive fusion. By resting awareness in stillness even as mental events come and go, mindfulness becomes imbued with a vivid perception of the simultaneity of stillness and movement, yielding insight, or vipashyana, into the nature of mental phenomena.

A central theme of this method of shamatha is to recognize mental events as such rather than conflating them with the objective referents of subjective experiences. This is very much like becoming lucid within a dream—recognizing the dream state for what it is, while still dreaming. In a nonlucid dream, one easily falls prey to all kinds of mental and even physical distress due to grasping onto and reifying the dreamed persona and everything else appearing in the dream. But to the extent that one clearly recognizes dream events as such, one will no longer be victimized by dream circumstances. Instead, one may transform the dream at will, or even let it unfold without intervention, all the while remaining calm and relaxed, regardless of whatever occurs. Similarly, the mindfulness practice of meditatively observing the mind and recognizing mental events for what they are allows one to attend to whatever appears in the waking state without hope or fear, desire or aversion. In both dreaming and waking states of consciousness, the truth does indeed set us free.

Some mental images and events are observed in “real time,” in that their appearance and the awareness of them occur simultaneously. The mental domain is characterized by a kind of objectivity, with an experienced sense of the separation of subject, or awareness, and object, or mental image. This is especially clear when one attends to mental images in a lucid dream. During the waking and dreaming states, it is also possible to be mindful of more subjective mental processes, such as desires and emotions. For example, when one becomes aware of a desire to move, the desire to move occurs first, and the awareness of that desire may arise a fraction of a second later. Desire and the observation of it occur sequentially, not simultaneously. The same is true for the observation of emotions.

According to Buddhist psychology, consciousness consists not of an unbroken, continuous stream, but rather of a continuum of brief, discrete moments of awareness. There is no consensus as to the shortest duration of such bursts of awareness, but one source widely considered authoritative in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism states that the shortest moment lasts for one sixty-fifth of the duration of a finger snap.³⁶ This equates to about six hundred pulses of consciousness per second. Buddhist epistemologists generally assert that for a person with ordinary attention skills, a single pulse of awareness is too short to ascertain anything. But when clusters of these individual moments coalesce, focused on the same object, they are able to apprehend it collectively. Each individual mind moment is classified as “nonascertaining awareness,” because consciousness is implicit rather than explicit. Each moment holds the potential for participating in a conscious experience, but it cannot do so by itself.

Two qualities of attention are explicitly refined during the practice of shamatha: stability and vividness. The quality of stability refers to the ability to sustain one’s attention upon the chosen object without forgetfulness or distraction. This can be explained in terms of the homogeneity of ascertaining clusters of attention on the meditative object: one after the other, these clusters of moments of awareness are successively focused on the same object. In the practice of settling the mind in its natural state, the object is the domain of mental events and whatever comes and goes in that domain.

The quality of vividness is of two kinds, temporal and qualitative. Temporal vividness refers to the ability to ascertain very brief, fleeting events, which can be understood in terms of the frequency of clusters of ascertaining consciousness. When moments of awareness cluster densely within a brief time span, one’s ability to detect fleeting events is enhanced. For example, if a mental image lasts only fifty milliseconds, but during that interval there occurs an ascertaining cluster of mind moments, then the image will be detected. But if the duration of the image is shorter than that of the cluster of mind moments, the image will pass unnoticed.

Qualitative vividness refers to the ability to ascertain events that may linger for longer periods, but are so subtle we fail to recognize them. These include the subtlest discursive thoughts, mental dialogues, images, memories, desires, and emotions. Even though they go undetected, they may strongly influence our minds and behavior. Unconscious mental processes, as Freud discovered centuries after Buddhist contemplatives, can actually exert deep and lasting influences in our mental lives. This practice is a path of self-knowledge, as subconscious influences are gradually identified via increasingly refined qualitative vividness. Such vividness can be explained as clusters of intensely luminous mind moments, where the innate luminosity of the substrate consciousness is increasingly unveiled and the obscuration by grasping subsides. Short, dense, high-intensity clusters of ascertaining consciousness may enhance both temporal and qualitative vividness, so the two kinds of vividness are closely intertwined.

Resting in deep, dreamless sleep, when comatose, and when we die, the ordinary mind naturally withdraws into the substrate consciousness, and the six domains of mental and sensory experience dissolve into the substrate. On these occasions, if one is not lucid—not recognizing the substrate for what it is—consciousness doesn’t ascertain anything, for it has become entirely implicit rather than explicit. It is imbued with great stability but virtually no vividness. But if one retains consciousness while the mind dissolves into the substrate consciousness via shamatha, one apprehends the substrate with exceptional stability and vividness.

Buddhist tradition states that each of the five modes of sensory perception arises in partial dependence upon a physical organ, or faculty (Skt. indriya). Neurophysiologists identify these as regions of the brain, such as the visual cortex, auditory cortex, olfactory bulb, and so on, and they assume that sensory perceptions are generated exclusively by the physical interactions of the brain with the physical environment. Buddhist contemplatives disagree, claiming that when the faculties of the physical senses meet with objective stimuli they enable and condition sensory consciousness, but they do not generate it. Sensory perceptions do not arise from the brain or its interactions with the rest of the body and the physical world. The first moment of visual perception upon opening one’s eyes emerges from the preceding moment of mental consciousness. Subsequent moments in the continuum of visual awareness arise from the immediately preceding moments, and this is true for all five modes of sensory perception.

Neuroscientists have so far been unsuccessful in identifying the neural correlates of consciousness, namely the minimal levels and types of neural activity needed to generate consciousness. Buddhist contemplatives counter that mental consciousness can occur without dependence on any physical organ. Rather, it arises in dependence upon a nonphysical mental faculty (Skt. manendriya), which is generally identified as the preceding moment of mental awareness.

When one first emerges from deep, dreamless sleep into a dream, which entails a kind of mental consciousness, the first moment of dreaming awareness arises in dependence upon the mental faculty that is the preceding moment of awareness. That awareness is none other than the substrate consciousness. Likewise, if one suddenly awakens from dreamless sleep, the first moment of waking mental consciousness emerges from the preceding moment of the substrate consciousness, which serves as its mental faculty. Buddhist contemplatives likewise assert that the first moment of mental consciousness of a human fetus arises not from the brain but from the preceding moment of substrate consciousness of the conscious being that has been conceived. The practice of shamatha may provide an experiential means for putting this hypothesis to the test.³⁷

Naturally Settled Mindfulness

Düdjom Lingpa explains that when we sustain the flow of mindfulness of mental events, recognizing them for what they are, without hope or fear, they eventually disappear by themselves, and consciousness rests in a spacious and loose state.³⁸ He describes the culmination of this shamatha practice of observing the mind:

Consciousness comes to rest in its own state, mindfulness emerges, and because there is less clinging to experiences, consciousness settles into its own natural, unmodified state. In this way you come to a state of naturally settled mindfulness. That experience is soothing and gentle, with clear, limpid consciousness that is neither benefited nor harmed by thoughts; and you experience a remarkable sense of stillness without needing to modify, reject, or embrace anything.³⁹

All subtle and coarse thoughts vanish; the ordinary mind of a sentient being disappears into the substrate consciousness; and all appearances of oneself, others, and objects disappear into the substrate.

At this point, one’s consciousness may become absorbed in the substrate, such that mindfulness is not even aware of itself. Slipping into this spacious vacuity, devoid of roving thoughts, is called “collapsing into empty mindfulness,” and this signifies reversion to a deluded state. When we arouse mindfulness once again, without reifying any experiences with various hopes or fears, such deluded experience naturally vanishes. Düdjom Lingpa explains: “At this time there is a prominent sense of bliss, luminosity, and nonconceptuality, and various visions of gods and demons may arise. These are expressions of the luminosity of the substrate consciousness, so this is called naturally luminous mindfulness.”⁴⁰ He warns that it is imperative not to become absorbed in such visions or to reify them, for this blocks one’s path to awakening.

The process of thoughts and sensory appearances dissolving into the substrate during the final process of settling the mind in its natural state closely parallels the dissolution of the ordinary mind when falling asleep. Indeed, by engaging in this practice as one falls asleep, it is possible to maintain consciousness during the transition from the waking state to dreamless sleep. One can then experience the substrate and substrate consciousness, but not with the same degree of vividness that occurs when one enters this state by achieving shamatha. A similar dissolution of appearances and the mind into the substrate naturally occurs during the dying process, culminating in a temporary state of oblivion called the “dark attainment.” Düdjom Lingpa comments that this may persist from six hours up to three days.⁴¹ If one is highly experienced in the practice of settling the mind in its natural state, one may retain consciousness throughout the entire dying process, including finally entering the dark attainment lucidly. The initial experience of the dark attainment is the moment when Buddhists deem a person to be dead, so by entering and dwelling in it with full consciousness, one reclassifies death from being inherently unknowable to being consciously knowable. In this way, the dying process is transformed from an experience of slipping into darkness to one of clearly emerging into the light of the substrate consciousness.

Cutting the Rope of Mindfulness

Luminously realizing the substrate consciousness by the shamatha practice of taking the mind as the path is not the culmination of the Buddhist path. Rather, it provides an unprecedented degree of mental equilibrium, stability, and clarity with which to venture into the deepest dimension of consciousness: pristine awareness. To quote the renowned statement made by Winston Churchill in response to Britain’s victory in the battle of Egypt, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” According to Düdjom Lingpa, the way to directly identify pristine awareness, the ultimate ground of one’s own being, is to first realize the emptiness of inherent nature of all phenomena in samsara and nirvana through the cultivation of vipashyana:

Once one has ascertained them as the play of the space of ultimate reality, one identifies that state as the great actualization, and apprehends one’s own nature. As a result, one naturally settles in ground awareness as the great freedom from extremes. That is the swift path, the vehicle of the Great Perfection.⁴²

Düdjom Lingpa explains what comes next with extraordinary clarity:

By continuing to meditate, all such experiences of a blankness, vacuity, and luminosity tainted by clinging vanish into absolute space, as if one were waking up. After this, outer appearances are not impeded, and the rope of inner mindfulness and firmly maintained attention is cut. Then one is not bound by the restraints of good meditation, nor does one fall back to an ordinary state through pernicious ignorance. Rather, ever-present, translucent, luminous consciousness transcending the conventions of view, meditation, and conduct shines through. Without dichotomizing self and object, such that one can say “this is consciousness” and “this is the object of consciousness,” the primordial, self-originating mind that has experiences is freed from clinging. When you settle in a spaciousness in which there is no cogitation or referent of the attention, all phenomena become manifest, for the power of awareness is unimpeded. Thoughts merge with their objects, they disappear as they become nondual with those objects, and they dissolve. Since not a single one has an objective referent, they are not thoughts of sentient beings. Rather, the mind has been transformed into wisdom, the power of awareness is transformed, and stability is achieved there. Understand that this is like water that is clear of sediment.⁴³

If one has gained such realization through the practice of the Great Perfection, following the experience of death, one may consciously experience the dissolution of the dark attainment into the clear light. In the words of Düdjom Lingpa:

As an analogy, just as the space inside a jar is united with the space outside, without even a speck of any appearance of a self, a radiant, clear expanse arises like all-pervasive space, free of contamination, like dawn breaking in the sky. At this time, people who are already very familiar with the ground awareness by means of the breakthrough [to pristine awareness, or the practice of Tib. trekchö] and who have gained confidence in this will recognize the junction of the awareness in which they have previously trained—which is like a familiar person—and the clear light that emerges later on. There they must hold their own ground, like a king sitting upon his throne. . . . The number of days one remains in meditative stabilization in the clear light of the dying process corresponds to the stability and duration of one’s present practice. Those who have achieved stability of practice lasting an entire day and night may achieve stability lasting seven human days at death. But for those who have not entered the path, the clear light will not appear longer than the time it takes to eat a bowl of food.⁴⁴

There are many practices in Tibetan Buddhism that are said to result in the realization of the “nature of mind.” By becoming lucid during the dream state and then consciously releasing the dream and letting all appearances vanish, one may experience one’s own substrate consciousness. By bringing the shamatha practice of settling the mind in its natural state to its culmination, one may realize the relative nature of mind by luminously accessing the substrate consciousness during the waking state. Through the practice of vipashyana, one may realize the ultimate nature of mind by recognizing its emptiness of inherent existence. Finally, one may realize the primordial nature of mind by realizing pristine awareness. Mindfulness plays a crucial role along this entire path, until it has finally served its ultimate purpose and the rope of mindfulness is cut.