Mindfulness is focused attention plus peripheral awareness

In December 2018, six years ago, I wrote what seems to be my first (and only) post about a book I'd just started reading, The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness.

A few days ago something spurred me to pluck the book from a bookshelf where it had been languishing after I'd read about half of the 415 pages, then put it aside.

I decided to re-read it, since the book methodically describes ten stages of Buddhist meditation and I wanted to start at the beginning rather than jump right into Stage Six, where is where I left off. 

I liked the book before, and I'm liking it now. The author, John Yates, who also goes by Culadasa, is deeply versed in what meditation is all about, and has a knack for describing meditation in a manner that is clear, creative, and compelling. 

In my 2018 post, I noted how the book's discussion of attention and awareness makes a lot of sense. Both are necessary in both everyday life and meditation. (RSSB refers to the India-based religious organization I was a member of for 35 years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas.)

In my reading this morning I was struck by the wisdom of clearly distinguishing attention from awareness. A Glossary in the back of the book defines these terms.

Attention: The cognitive ability to select and analyze specific information and ignore other information arising from a vast field of internal and external stimuli. Attention is one of two forms of conscious awareness. Peripheral awareness is the second: we pay attention to some things, while simultaneously being aware of, but not attending to, others. 

Awareness: As used in this book, awareness always has the same meaning as peripheral awareness. It never means attention, nor does it refer to covert or non-conscious awareness. 

Any meditation approach that doesn't combine the benefits of attention and awareness is like a bird trying to fly with one wing. Both are needed. When we drive a car, we can't focus all of our attention on staying in our lane and keeping a safe distance from the car ahead of us. 

We've got to have peripheral awareness also. What if a car unexpectedly runs a stop light at an intersection? What if a child chasing a ball runs into the road? There are so many things we need to be aware of, other than what our primary focus is.

This is why mantra meditation, where a word or words is repeated (usually soundlessly) as a focus of attention, is very limited. Repeating a mantra was emphasized by the RSSB teachings that I followed for so many years. And not only during the time of meditation, but as much as possible throughout the rest of the day.

I eventually realized that this had some major drawbacks.

I found that when I put too much attention on the mantra, I distanced myself from the reality of what was around me. Like, the person I was talking with, or nature, if I was out on a walk. I also observed that many RSSB devotees acted a lot like robots, lacking spontaneity, naturalness, social awareness. 

They were so focused on keeping their attention from scattering out into the world, they were clueless about what was happening in the world -- the exact opposite of mindfulness, which requires a wise balancing of attention and awareness. There's a time to be focused on one thing, and there's a time to be aware of the entirety of what surrounds us.

Since recently I've been reading and writing about a couple of books aimed at making the reader better able to manifest their goals, with each book emphasizing the importance of positivity in our affirmations, visualizations, and such, I was struck by how The Mind Illuminated echoes that advice in a chapter I re-read today. 

Here Yates is discussing the process of (1) forgetting the meditation goal of focusing attention on the breath at the nose, (2) engaging in some mind-wandering, and (3) waking up again to the goal of focusing attention on the breath at the nose.

Awakening to the present is an important opportunity to understand and appreciate how your mind works. You've just had a minor epiphany, an "aha!" moment of realizing there's a disconnect between what you're doing (thinking about something else) and what you intended to do (watch the breath).

But this wasn't something you did. Nor can you voluntarily make it happen. The process that discovered this disconnect isn't under your conscious control. It happens unconsciously, but when the "findings" become conscious, you have an "aha!" moment of introspective awareness.

The way to overcome mind-wandering is by training this unconscious process to make the discovery and bring it into consciousness sooner and more often. Yet, how do you train something that happens unconsciously?

Simply take a moment to enjoy and appreciate "waking up" from mind-wandering. Savor the sense of being more fully conscious and present. Cherish your epiphany and encourage yourself to have more of them. 

Conscious intention and affirmation powerfully influence our unconscious processes. By valuing this moment, you're training the mind through positive reinforcement to wake you up more quickly in the future.

Also, avoid becoming annoyed or self-critical about mind-wandering. It doesn't matter that your mind wandered. What's important is that you realized it. To become annoyed or self-critical in the "aha!" moment will slow down your progress.

You can't scold the mind into changing, especially when dealing with entrenched mental patterns like forgetting and mind-wandering. It's like telling your unconscious you don't want to have the mind-wandering interrupted. If negative emotions do arise, simply notice them and let them come, let them be, and let them go. 

It's like training a pet. Consistent, immediate positive reinforcement of behaviors we want will be far more effective than punishing behaviors we don't. 

Comments

[sant64]

A new narcissism project. The quest for the glorious me continueth. New author, new book, new meditation technique. This time we'll get it right.

I'm still meditating on the incredible Hunter pardon and the desperate attempts to explain it as somehow being a smart move. And not what it clearly is -- a trifecta of mendacity, hypocrisy and corruption.

[um]

>> I found that when I put too much attention on the mantra, I distanced myself from the reality of what was around me. Like, the person I was talking with, or nature, if I was out on a walk. I also observed that many RSSB devotees acted a lot like robots, lacking spontaneity, naturalness, social awareness. <<

You mentioned peripheral attention, in terms of being aware of children etc running all of a sudden onto the street etc.

How came you te learn driving?
First you were aware of all separate activities needed to drive a car. In those days there was restricted awareness, attention, consciousness of other things like conversing with a passenger, listening to radio, looking at the surroundings and daydreaming about the next blog to write.
Overtime all these activities were integrated in what you now call "driving" and THAT driving is executed but not by YOU ...YOU are doing other things and that "driving"is executed in the periphery of your consciousness ...I write it down in this way but with regard to what was written here.

Simran in the end has to be done in the same way ..UNFORTUNATELY many or most {western} satsangis never get to integrate the simran in the same way as they have done with, driving a car, bicycle etc. so they cannot set free THAT attention that is realy needed to meditate.,

As I wrote before there is very little instruction related to the practice of Sant Mat let alone proper guidance by an seasoned guide ....so that it opens that people can doe simran and meditate for decades in the wrong way.

Why there is so little detailed instruction and proper guidance I never understood ..I do have an idea ... but do not want to discuss it here ...

[Appreciative Reader]

"Any meditation approach that doesn't combine the benefits of attention and awareness is like a bird trying to fly with one wing. Both are needed."

That's a lovely insight.

While that applies to theistic mantra/yantra meditation, but equally, I think that applies to Anapana and Vipassana meditation as well, if one focuses only on sitting (or for that matter walking) meditation.

The Vipassana tradition emphasizes the flying-with-one-wing aspect of focusing on Shamata meditation alone --- which is what mantra/yantra meditation does --- while leaving unaddressed insight meditation. But, it appears to me, and as you quote Yates/Culadasa as saying, the Shamata-plus-Insight combo, and even the sitting-plus-walking combo, is still in the flying-with-one-wing category, if one does not throw in everyday mindfulness practice into the mix as well.

In practice, at least as I've seen it done, everyday mindfulness practice isn't always emphasized, at least nowhere near as much as the Shamata-plus-Vipassana combo of sitting-walking meditation is. Doing which does let one take off and fly away, certainly --- unlike when it's a bird literally flapping just one wing --- but that flight probably isn't anywhere as soaring as it might be when you rigorously incorporate everyday mindfulness practice as well.

----------

Incidentally, I completely love and admire your love of books and learning, and particularly of continued assimilation of what you've learned. The first step towards which is to retain the books one has read, that one finds of particular worth --- which I do, as well. But obviously the all-important second step is to actually go ahead and do the re-reading and the assimilation, which I'm very very poor at following through with. Most of my books simply sit there on the bookshelf, waiting --- although I do seek them out and pick them up to check up particular things that sometimes come up, but even that last is now often taken care of, more easily and more lazily, by clicking through on Google and Google-directed references.

Your complete dedication to books and learning and understanding remains an inspiration, Brian.

[Ron E.]

I appreciate this pithy explanation: ‘Attention is the mind’s agent. Awareness pays no mind to any-thing, it simply receives’. I understand attention as being focused where the brain is actively processing information as when I am writing these words – yet at the same time there is an awareness of what is happening within my field of senses. Yet I am not consciously aware of background sounds; that is perhaps until one sound is unusual and immediately grabs my ‘attention’. So yes, awareness is not attention, and yes, awareness simply receives – only to become attention when something impinges on the senses.

With regard to meditation this latest blog of Brian’s makes good sense – e.g.: “It doesn't matter that your mind wandered. What's important is that you realized it.” It’s actually quite fun (in an interest-ed sort of way) to watch the attention leaping about. I’d reckon that as the ‘aha’ moment(s) arise more often, the relevance of all the words describing awareness, attention, consciousness (although necessary in some contexts) tend to fade away as more and more, what remains is simply the present moment.

Whenever the attention is drawn to the realisation of just being this present moment, even though the barrage of thoughts and sensations always come flooding back, a kind of knowing or feeling persists that allows a certain lightness in one’s approach to the ‘intrusions’.

[um]

@ Ron E.

I came to know about John Butler through one of the members of my family that was highly inspired by this man and stress ing .. being PRESENT

This is an interview with the man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewz-oF8cj4w

In the beginning, some years ago it was all simple, it was just him and his approach to meditation, but over time it has grown to an sophisticated movement. ...what seems to be the fate of all things that are brought in to the centre of attention.

[Ron E.]

Hi um. Yes, it seems to often be the way that people make an okay start in presenting their methods - and then, something slips or takes over and they lose the plot.

[um]

@ Ron E.

It is a strange thing ..over time I came to realize that what has left long lasting impression on me was the presence of people. What hooked me so to say in the beginning were their words but these days i realize that their words were just an excuse to be with them, to associate with them.

It reminds me of something I do attribute to the late MCS but it could be as well have another source ... one can write a whole library full of books about it, or just one book, one chapter, one sentence or even one word ...or ..be silent.

Some people are ..the EMBODIMENT of something and it doesn't matter whether they speak or remain silent.

In retrospect I must laugh about myself and realize how listening to and focusing on words pulls the attention in the wrong direction so to saqy ..fortunately the warmth of the sun is still felt even by him that has is eyes closed.

It has been my good fortune to have known and lived with several of these "embodiments" ...realizing that it is doubtful for some whether they were aware of it themselves.

And .. probably we cannot resonate with all of these people in the same way. There must be some common level of "recognition" in parties.

Sat sang ..the compagny of truth, ..the presence

[Trez]

Mindful meditation can be good just don't do mindless meditation like what Gurinder Singh Dhilion preaches at the Radha Soami school of nut jobs.

Repeating evil names 5 times for 3 hours a day can only get you to a hell not any paradise can it.

A cult based on deception and lies, is never a God's path

A organised cult operating for fulfillment of dollars and power is a way to a hell too

Do meditation and search for the One just not in such a hell hole religion as Gurinder Singh Dhilion and the Radha Soami Cult