Mindfulness is more than just awareness. It is a state of meditative responsiveness that cultivates the capacity in us to perceive things as they are - from moment to moment
It is rightly said that mindfulness - a cognitive skill and practice - helps us to identify our hidden emotional patterns. It brings to the fore the light of awareness to freeing ourselves from their stranglehold, especially in today's context, where our constant battles have little to do with actual situations, but much to do with symbolic, existing meanings of what happened, and why.
Is there a way out? Yes, there is - what we need to have in place, to attaining mental composure are the right tools of awareness, since we already have the potential to being our own inner alchemists - to refining alertness. The idea is simple; it is also profound. Here goes - the physics of consciousness, for instance, parallels emotional alchemy in more ways than one, like the classical cloud build up and its dispersal. It transforms dazed emotional states, for example, to bring clarity and lightness of being.
Mindfulness is more than just awareness. It is a state of meditative responsiveness that cultivates the capacity in us to perceive things as they are - from moment to moment. While it is agreed that our focus oscillates rather immoderately, the doctrine of mindfulness conforms itself to a different rung. It is distraction-resistant; it is sustained attention to the movements of our mind itself. Rather than being swerved pronto, and captured by a thought, or feeling, mindfulness unswervingly watches thoughts as they come and go.
Mindfulness has its roots emblazoned in the ancient system of Buddhist psychology, which holds a refreshingly positive view of human nature. The strategy places great emphasis on what is right with us - and, not what is wrong with us in consonance with the primal obsession of Western psychology. Not that Buddhist psychology is dismissive of our disturbing emotions. On the contrary, it views them as covering our essential goodness like the clouds 'casing' the Sun.
Mindfulness, according to Antonino Raffone, et al ("Mindfulness and the Cognitive Neuroscience of Attention and Awareness:" "Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science"), can be understood as the mental ability to focus on the direct and immediate perception, or monitoring, of the present moment with a state of open and non-judgmental awareness." It is obvious that quintessential descriptions, including similes, of mindfulness and methods for cultivating it originated in Eastern spiritual traditions. These suggest that mindfulness can be developed through meditation practice to increase positive qualities, such as awareness, insight, wisdom, and compassion. While the relationships between mindfulness, associated meditation practices, and the cognitive neuroscience of attention and awareness are part of the mindful lexicon, mindful awareness is related to distributed attention, phenomenal consciousness, and momentary self‐awareness, as characterised by recent findings in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, as well as in influential consciousness models. It may, thus, represent, as Raffone, et al, outline, an integrated neurocognitive model of mindfulness, attention, and awareness, with a key role played by the prefrontal cortex.
Psychologist Tara Bennett-Goleman's research brings to the fore a fascinating synthesis of such a medley of sources: from Buddhist psychology, mindful meditation, and Tibetan Buddhism to cognitive science, cognitive therapy, and neuroscience. It has, in the process, unravelled new, or novel, scientific discoveries behind emotional alchemy - that mindfulness shifts the brain from disturbing to positive emotions. In so doing, she distils the fact why the brain stays 'plastic' throughout life, changing itself as we learn to challenge our own old inclinations. Besides, she perceptively reveals, in her fine book, "Emotional Alchemy," the crux of modern thinking - a crucial, imperative fragment of neuroscience - how we all have the ability to rejecting any self-defeating emotional impulse in a jiffy.
To place the context in perspective, "Cognitive neuroscience," as Evan Thompson, a professor of philosophy, puts it in his paper, "Looping Effects and the Cognitive Science of Mindfulness Meditation" ("Oxford Academic"), "tends to conceptualise mindfulness meditation as inner observation of a private mental realm of thoughts, feelings, and body sensations, and tries to model mindfulness as instantiated in neural networks visible through brain imaging tools, such as EEG and fMRI. This approach confounds the biological conditions for mindfulness with mindfulness itself, which, as classically described, consists in the integrated exercise of a whole host of cognitive and bodily skills in situated and ethically directed action. From an 'enactive' perspective, mindfulness depends on internalised social cognition and is a mode of skilful, embodied cognition that depends directly not only on the brain, but also on the rest of the body and the physical, social, and cultural environment."
Research supports the view that mindfulness meditation - practised for reducing stress and promotion of health - wields useful effects on physical and mental health, including cognitive performance.
Goleman substantiates the whole idea - with the finesse of a surgeon. She contends that cognitive therapy, thus, holds the key to better, or useful, outcomes. She details, in precis, the emotional contours of the fear of loss, to pick just one paradigm, that somebody close is going to leave us; or, our own self-instilled apprehension that a minor setback at the workplace means that we'd end up jobless. However, what makes Goleman's research a wonderful, and truly rewarding, experience is her simple, yet weighty, blueprint. To bring home the point, she retells, by way of an example, a classical sequence from "The Wizard of Oz," where Dorothy and her companions finally get to Oz, thanks to the handiwork of the little dog, Toto, who quietly goes and pulls back the curtain. The result? It 'exposes' an old man crouched over the controls - manipulating a mammoth Wizard image.
Nidamboor is a wellness physician, independent researcher and author