Six Human Capacities enhanced by Mindfulness
In this article, our Guest Blogger Philip Urso summarizes in plain language parts of the landmark clinical review "Mindfulness Meditation and Psychopathology" by Wielgosz, Goldberg, Kral, Dunne, and Davidson, (2019). Philip introduced the concept of the Meta-Mind to our co-founder, Madeleine, in 2021 during her yoga teacher training at Live Love Teach in Rhode Island. The notion dramatically impacted Madeleine's life and sparked her quest into sharing mindfulness and breathwork with others.
1. Meta-Mind
The term “meta” means “beyond” or “of itself.” For example, meta-physical means “beyond physical,” or spiritual. A “meta-meme” is a meme about memes. Meta-mind (or meta-awareness) suggests a level of mind beyond our ordinary mind that watches, reports, and corrects current thinking. We often experience meta-awareness when we are mediating and get lost in a dream of thinking. Meta-mind is the capacity that nudges us awake.
Of the many capacities that you develop in meditation, one is “meta-mind” or “awareness of awareness,” an ability to watch one’s own thinking processes. This can result in “correcting” or refocusing a distracted mind in meditation, while concentrating on the task at hand, or monitoring one’s feelings, emotion or mood.
2. Present-centered awareness
This ability is what you may expect- an enhanced capacity to sustain your focus in the present moment as opposed to being lost in past or future thoughts. We develop this capacity by the moment-to-moment concentration on the object of meditation be it your breath, sensation, a fixed object or a mantra. At first, the student will likely become lost in “mental time-travel” quite often until meta-mind nudges them awake and reestablishes the focus on the present moment.
Meditation helps people develop a capacity to sustain focus on the present moment, as opposed to day-dreaming of an upsetting argument or even a happy experience at work. Two ways to avoid “mental time travel” are to focus on sensation as it happens or feel the breath move in your body right now.
3. Non-Reactivity
To be non-reactive is a capacity to interrupt or forgo a repeated pattern of responding to a current provocative experience. Meditation enhances our ability to be non-reactive by helping us witness the mind over time in a curious, nonjudgmental way. (See “meta-awareness” above and “dereification” below.)
“Meditation helps you build your capacity to resist reactivity and other patterns by helping you become more familiar with the repetitive patterns in your mind. “Open monitoring” meditation includes a curious or non-judgmental approach. You will see your mind’s usual processes coming and going, and by getting to know these processes, you no longer automatically “obey” them. It becomes easier to simply take a pass on reactivity and judgment because with meta-awareness, you can see them arising.”
4. Dereification- knocking ideas or thoughts off of their throne
First, let’s look at the opposite of dereification: Reification is the process of “objectifying reality and then, apprehending the object as an alien thing that is independent of its producer” (Moore, 1995). Thoughts and concepts are often given this objective, unassailable status. Dereification happens when reified thoughts, once presumed unquestionable, become subject to doubt.
My own experience of dereification occurred when I was first learning to meditate. I realized I was watching my thoughts. I paused and noted, “It’s like I have two minds!” One part was the voice in my head, and the other part was me watching the voice in my head. Up to that minute, I thought the voice in my head was my REAL “reified “voice, me, and I needed to obey it. But in that first experience of meta-awareness, I dereified the voice in my head. That is, I realized that the voice in my head was producing random theories, not unassailable truth.
With the distancing provided by meta-awareness, I also noticed that the voice in my head was self-absorbed, always seeking to “get something” even when it was purporting to be charitable. I realized I no longer had to believe or obey this voice in my head or consider its “advice” as originating from my own “real” voice. In meditation, if the voice in your head begins an internal debate with itself, it helps to remember thoughts are just thoughts and nothing more. Using meta-awareness, we then refocus on the object of meditation.
Each time you catch yourself caught in a web of thought (in meditation or anytime) one technique that dereifies distracting thoughts is to say to yourself, “thinking.” Saying “thinking” de-powers thoughts by putting them all in the same category- none are special or require obedience.
Meditation helps us soften our sometimes fixed and unhelpful thinking. It may also bring our perceptions closer to the truth.
5. The capacity to reprocess our identity and obtain a more permanent form of happiness
Meditation gives people the ability to shift away from the self-absorption of “autobiographical thought” in favor of a higher identification with present moment awareness. In essence, you “dereify” your self-concept (see #4 above). Buddhist tradition suggests moving our awareness away from high levels of “personal content” towards little or no self-identity results in permanent happiness, independent of external circumstances (Cutz, Rathus, Vidair, DeRos, 2015).
When our capacity to be present dominates our identity, we gain a more permanent form of happiness and connection with others. Fixed on what is happening now, we carry little or no awareness in autobiographical thinking. We may enjoy things as they are without clinging. We may feel as though we are complete, safe, and without the burden to prove anything to anyone. In fact neediness of all kinds may disappear. We may no longer even notice or “require” whether others “respect” us. In fact, our identity is no longer employed looking out to be offended. Others are free to feel how they wish about us and we are free of the burden of demanding others treat us a particular way.
No self, no problem.
6. Compassion
Meditation increases our capacity for compassion. Through a concert of the first five capabilities developed in meditation, a sixth capacity, compassion, flourishes. In present-moment awareness, supported by meta-awareness and non-reactivity, we are equipped to see people anew. As they are, not as they were, or as we judged them to be. Dereification helps weaken our fixed-judgments of others and may render bleak opinions irrelevant. In filling the content of our identity with present-moment awareness, we have less “room” for self-absorption.
The lightness of presence gives rise to permanent happiness. This dependable form of happiness naturally extends to others.
When you see someone you hate, is it possible that you are seeing only your own past judgements of him? Are you seeing him now, as he is, or are you meeting only with your own past? For you to feel “good” must the other be wrong, hurt or fail? Does that feel good?
If you were to focus with no view of your or their past what would you see? With your focus on present-moment awareness of this person, is your perception more accurate and kind? Is there even the slightest opening for kindness? Compassion? Is this the answer to the spiritual void many people feel today? To give present-moment attention to whoever you are with.
MEET THE AUTHOR
Written by Philip Urso
Currently, Philip is enrolled in his 5th-semester of graduate classes at Harvard focusing on medical and psychological studies on anxiety, yoga, and mindfulness.
Philip studied for ten years with Baron Baptiste where he rose to co-facilitator. In 2009, he co-created Live Love Teach with Stacy Dockins and Deborah Williamson. Today, Live Love Teach, is owned and operated by Philip Urso and Renee Deslauriers. Live Love Teach is one of only a few Yoga Alliance-recognized Yoga Teacher Training schools to maintain a five-star rating with over one-hundred reviews from certified graduates. http://liveloveteach.com/
Additional References:
Moore, R. J. (1995). Dereification in Zen Buddhism. The Sociological Quarterly, 36(4), 699-723. doi:10.1111/j.1533-8525.1995.tb00461.x
Cutz, G. S., Rathus, J., Vidair, H. B., & Derosa, R. (2015). Assumptions and Conclusions: Fundamental Distinctions Between Tibetan Buddhist and Western Approaches to Happiness. Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 33(4), 341-367. doi:10.1007/s10942-015-0216-9
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