The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science

by Culadasa (John Yates)

Meditation on Dependent Arising As metacognitive awareness grows stronger, the causal relationships between various sensory and mental events become clearer. This happens because one of the basic functions of peripheral awareness is to perceive the relationships of objects to each other and to the whole. In this meditation, you follow mental events as they occur in sequence. Specifically, consciousness of a sensation or thought (contact), is followed by an affective response (feeling), leading to desire or aversion (craving), then to the arising of an intention to act (“becoming”), and finally to the action itself (“birth”). This is also called following the “links” of dependent arising,2 the causal relationship between mental processes described in traditional Buddhist literature. By intentionally tracking these causal links with attention, the Meditation on Dependent Arising makes metacognitive awareness more powerful and provides Insight into how mental processes unfold.