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

by Culadasa (John Yates)

Instead, there is the illusion of paying attention to two or more things simultaneously. What’s actually happening is that the focus of attention is moving very quickly among several different objects, but staying with each one for about the same amount of time overall.

During meditation, intentional movements of attention will eventually replace all three types of spontaneous movements of attention.

Intentionally Directing and Sustaining Attention

Intentionally directed attention4 means just that: we make a conscious decision about what to pay attention to.

Beginning in the very first Stages (Two and Three), you exercise and strengthen your ability to intentionally direct attention.

For this reason, you also have to learn how to sustain attention.5 This means you want to stop all spontaneous movements of attention.

It’s possible to voluntarily direct attention.

However, the part of the mind that sustains attention for more than a few moments wor...

Just by intending to observe an object and to come back whenever we get distracted, we’re training that unconscious process to help us stay focused more continuously.

Formulating the conscious intention to focus on the meditation object provides a new piece of information for unconscious processes to take into account.

Exclusive attention7 to one object, also called single-pointedness, is very different from alternating attention.

This is the very essence of meditation: we reprogram unconscious mental processes by repeating basic tasks over and over with a clear intention.

Scope of Attention

Once you can direct and sustain your attention, you will then work on controlling the scope of attention: how wide or narrow you want your focus to be.

An expanded scope is a lot like alternating attention, in that you can include more things in attention.

This is a skill you cultivate mainly in Stage Six, after your focus of attention has become more stable.

In both Stages Six and Seven, you give particular emphasis to exclusive focus on the meditation object.

By Stage Eight, you have mastered control of your scope and can broaden your focus so it includes the entire field of conscious awareness in a single, open, and expansive “nonfocus.”

Fortunately, we can also increase the power of consciousness, meaning everything will still be quite clear. This brings us to the second objective of meditation, mindfulness.

THE SECOND OBJECTIVE OF MEDITATION: MINDFULNESS

We become so entangled in our own thoughts and emotions that we forget the bigger picture.

Mindfulness allows us to recognize our options, choose our responses wisely, and take control over the direction of our lives. It also gives us the power to change our past conditioning and become the person we want to be. Most importantly, mindfulness leads to Insight, Wisdom, and Awakening.

But with sati, we pay attention to the right things, and in a more skillful way.

As a result, our peripheral awareness is much stronger, and our attention is used with unprecedented precision and objectivity.

A more accurate but clumsysounding phrase would be “powerfully effective conscious awareness,” or “fully conscious awareness.”

However, by “mindfulness,” I specifically mean the optimal interaction between attention and peripheral awareness, which requires increasing the overall conscious po...

Normal Functions of Attention and Periph...

To really grasp mindfulness, we first have to know what attention and periphera...

With this understanding, you will see how ordinary attention and awareness can become that optimal interaction we call mindfulness.

It picks out one object from the general field of conscious awareness, then analyzes and interprets that object.

Once an object of attention has been identified and analyzed, it can be further examined, reflected on, judged, and responded to.

In order for this process to happen quickly and effectively, attention turns all of its objects into concepts or abstract ideas—unless of course the object is already a concept or idea.

Generally, attention translates our raw experience of the world into terms we can more easily understand, which we then o...

Peripheral awareness, on the other hand, works v...

Instead of singling out one object for analysis, it involves a general awareness of ever...

That is, it’s concerned with the relationships of objects to each other, and to the whole.

Attention analyzes our experience, and peripheral awareness provides the context.

When one or the other doesn’t do its job, or when there isn’t enough interaction between the two, then we respond to situations less effectively. We may overreact, make poor decisions, or misinterpret what’s going on.

Any new sensation, thought, or feeling appears first in pe...

Peripheral awareness filters out unimportant information and “captures” the objects that deserve closer scrutiny by attention.

As attention hones in on something, peripheral awareness is alert and on the lookout for anything new or unusual.

Peripheral awareness helps us stay alert to our surroundings and to use attention as effectively as possible. When peripheral awareness doesn’t do its job, attention moves blindly, without guidance, and can be taken off guard.

If peripheral awareness doesn’t do its job, attention is too easily overwhelmed and too slow to take over these functions. As a result, we don’t react to these events at all, or we react to them in a completely unconscious and automatic way—blindly, mindlessly, and with none of the benefits of conscious processing.

Finally, attention and peripheral awareness can be either extrospective or introspective.

Extrospective means that attention or awareness is directed toward objects that come from outside your mind, such as sights, smells, or bodily sensations.

Introspective means the objects in consciousness are internal—thoughts, feelings, state...

Having more conscious power means the quality of both attention and peripheral awareness improves.

This transforms the interaction between them in a number of important ways:

Peripheral awareness doesn’t fade when attention ...

Peripheral awareness does a better job of providing context and makes you more sensitive to how objects relate ...