Concepts are not the solution. They’re the problem

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“The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.” – Saint Augustine

 

Human beings rely on thinking. It’s responsible for human race’s ability to create the tools that have allowed us to dominate our planet and reshape it to suit our wants and needs. Much of thinking is conceptual. It is a mental manipulation of ideas and thoughts represented by concepts which are represented by words. We are reliant on our concepts to process information. This is and effective but very limited strategy.

 

We need these concepts because our minds are not capable of working with large amounts of information at the same time, as computers can. In fact, it’s been estimated that we are only able to work with about seven pieces of information at a time. That doesn’t give us much to work with unless we can somehow compress the information. In psychology this compressed information are called chunks. Words and concepts are examples of chunks.

 

There are many varieties of these chunks from the concrete, like ‘car’ to the abstract variety like ‘justice’. The word ‘chair’ is a concept, a chunk. It represents a wide range of different entities that have a common purpose to allow humans to sit comfortably. They range from solid wood hardback chairs, to patio chairs, to reclining chairs, etc. If we wish to think about chairs we are not capable of holding all the different kinds of chairs in our mind at once, so the concept chair is used instead and only comprises one piece of information. This frees the mind to consider other pieces in information along with the chair in processing information.

 

The use of these concepts has worked wonderfully for our everyday and scientific purposes. But, unfortunately they are interpreted as real, rather than the useful tools that they are. Concepts have no reality unto themselves. They are simply symbols. In fact they are always inherently incorrect. There are many, many, different objects that we call chairs, but the concept chair doesn’t really accurately describe any of them fully. There are many, many, different forms of actions or outcomes that we call justice, but the concept justice doesn’t really accurately describe any of them fully. So, the concept, although convenient, is never truly accurate or comprehensive.

 

These concepts can prove obstacles for creative thinking as they so compartmentalize things as to make it difficult to see them as something else, or reconfigure the concept to include or exclude various objects. The concepts themselves tend to separate things and thereby make it more difficult to see a wooden chair in the same category as a wood boat even though they are both objects created out of wood. We were once on a camping trip and ran out of gas. We had lots of camp stove fuel, but were unable for over an hour to realize that it was gasoline and could be used to fuel the vehicle. Once we broke through our conceptual fixatedness we filled the tank with camp stove fuel and drove off.

 

Concepts also freeze things in time which does not accurately portray the actual nature of the thing. This is most obvious with perishable items, like fruits and vegetables, although actually true for all things, they are impermanent and every changing. So, a lemon is soil and water, it’s a seed, it’s a tree, it’s a bud, it’s an unripe fruit, it falls from the tree, it is a ripe fruit, it begins to rot, it transforms back for simple chemicals, soil and water. The lemon is all of these things at some point or another. But the concept neglects the dynamic ever changing nature of the lemon and its connection to all other soil and water derived things.

 

If you follow this reasoning deeply you can begin to see that concepts and categories are artificial and, in essence, all things are the same thing. Not only is the lemon soil and water but so is the chair, and so is the car, etc. It is this problem with concepts that causes us to miss the oneness of all things. This is the cornerstone of enlightenment. Enlightenment experiences are highly varied, but they all have the common strain of an experience of the oneness of everything. Under normal conditions we miss this completely due to the operation of our compartmentalizing (dualistic) concepts.

 

The Buddha realized this and taught about it extensively. The “Diamond Sutra” is entirely concerned with how concepts can deceive and prevent you from attaining enlightenment. He stated that “the living beings to whom you refer are neither living beings nor not living beings. Why? Subhuti, all the different kinds of living beings the Buddha speaks of are not living beings. But they are referred to as living beings.” He is clearly recognizing that the concept ‘living beings’ can be seen in many different ways and just sticking to the actual concept itself is a deception or as he would say, a delusion.

 

To see the world as a Buddha you must fully understand a thing in all its glorious forms, varieties, and stages before the concept can be used appropriately. To see the world as a Buddha, concepts are the problem, not the solution.

 

“Thought can organize the world so well that you are no longer able to see it.”  ― Anthony de Mello

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Healthier Behaviors Come with Mindfulness

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“The evidence cannot be overlooked: secondhand smoke kills, secondhand smoke harms, and secondhand smoke has no safe limit of exposure.” – Dr. Len

 

Mindfulness is known to promote physical health. Many of its benefits are attributed to the physical effects of mindfulness on the nervous system, the immune or the stress hormone systems. But many of the health issues in a modern society result from the individual’s behaviors. These include a poor diet, lack of exercise, cigarette smoking, drinking in excess, etc. Fortunately, mindfulness can assist with these problems also, affecting health by altering health related behaviors such as a healthy diet or exercise. Indeed, mindfulness has been shown to produce healthier eating habits, reducing overeating and binge eating (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/26/eat-mindfully-for-obesity/). Mindfulness can also help the individual deal with problem drinking (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/28/kick-the-drug-habit-with-mindfulness/).

 

It has been well established that second hand cigarette smoke is dangerous. Since 1964, it has been estimated that 2,500,000 nonsmokers have died from health problems caused by exposure to secondhand smoke. About 34,000 heart disease deaths and that 7,300 lung cancer deaths each year are produced by breathing secondhand smoke. Obviously, an important but rarely studied health related behavior is the avoidance of secondhand smoke.

 

In today’s Research News article “Mindfulness, Physical Activity and Avoidance of Secondhand Smoke: A Study of College Students in Shanghai”

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Gao and colleagues studied the relationship between college students’ levels of mindfulness and their avoidance of secondhand smoke and their activity levels. They found that the higher the level of mindfulness the higher the level of avoidance of secondhand smoke. In addition, higher levels of mindfulness were associated with higher activity levels. Interestingly, being male made it much more difficult to avoid secondhand smoke.

 

These results support the notion that mindfulness improves health and well-being not only directly through effects on the physiology but also indirectly by altering the types of behaviors that are associated with health. It both increases behaviors that tend to improve health, exercise, and decreasing behaviors that can lead to poor health, breathing secondhand smoke.

 

So, practice mindfulness and be healthier.

 

“The doctor of the future will give no medicines, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the causes and prevention of disease”. ~Thomas Edison

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Mindful Drivers are Better Drivers

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“Mindful living is an art. You do not have to be a monk or living in a monastery to practice mindfulness. You can practice it anytime, while driving your car or doing housework. Driving in mindfulness will make the time in your car joyful, and it will also help you avoid accidents. You can use the red traffic light as a signal of mindfulness, reminding you to stop and enjoy your breathing.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh

 

Driving a car is the most dangerous thing that most people do. That danger is increased many fold if the individual is not paying attention or is distracted. Over 3,000 deaths and 400,000 injuries per year have been attributed to distracted driving. There are no lack of ways to distract yourself while driving including texting, using a cell phone, eating and drinking, talking to passengers, grooming, reading, including maps, using a navigation system, watching a video, and adjusting a radio, cd player, or mp3 player. Any and all of which could prove fatal.

 

Mindfulness is the antidote to distracted driving. Mindfulness is being aware in the present moment of everything that is going on around you. This is exactly what you should be doing while driving. Unfortunately there is very little research on the topic. It is known that mindfulness predicts less texting while driving. But, much more research is needed to investigate if mindfulness could be used as a preventative measure against distracted driving.

 

In today’s Research News article “Assessing dangerous driving behavior during driving inattention: Psychometric adaptation and validation of the Attention-Related Driving Errors Scale in China”

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Qu and colleagues investigate, among other things, the relationship of mindfulness with driving.  They found that high mindfulness predicted low attention-related driving errors, cognitive errors, dangerous driving, emotional driving, aggressive driving, risky driving, and even drunk driving. In other words mindfulness was found to be predictive of good safe driving habits.

 

Mindfulness training strengthens attention, which is obviously critical to safe driving. It also increases emotion regulation, making the driver less susceptible to reacting in a dangerous or inappropriate way to the emotions that often accompany driving.  Finally, mindfulness decreases stress, making the driver better able to think clearly during difficult driving situations.

 

So, practice mindfulness and be a better safer driver.

 

“Texting while driving increases the risk of accident 23.2 times over unimpaired driving.” ~Virginia Tech Transportation Institute

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Mindfully Stop Compulsive Checking

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“OCD is not a disease that bothers; it is a disease that tortures.”– J. J. Keeler

 

Have you ever returned to your home to make sure that you turned off the coffee pot, locked the back door, or shut off the sprinklers. That wouldn’t be unusual. We’ve all done it. But, now picture yourself doing it every time you leave the house and maybe even multiple times each leaving. Now that is when it becomes compulsive checking and is indicative of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). In fact repetitive checking is the most common symptom of OCD.

 

An OCD sufferer has anxiety producing intrusive thoughts (obsessions) that result in repetitive behaviors to reduce anxiety (compulsions). For example, many are concerned about germs and are unable to control the anxiety that these thoughts produce. Their solution is to engage in ritualized behaviors, such as repetitive cleaning or hand washing that for a short time relieves the anxiety. But, the sufferer comes to not trust their own memory for what has been done previously, so the thoughts and anxieties and ritualized behaviors come back again quickly. The obsessions and compulsions can become so frequent that they become a dominant theme in their lives. Hence OCD drastically reduces the quality of life and happiness of the sufferer and those around them.

 

At any point in time about 1% of the U.S. population suffers from OCD and about 2% of the population is affected at some time in their life. Hence, the problem is widespread and there is a need for effective treatments. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has been shown to be effective and one component of CBT, cognitive restructuring, has been shown to be effective on its own. However, these methods are not always effective and relapse is common.

 

Research has demonstrated that mindfulness helps in overcoming the symptoms of OCD (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/mindfully-improve-psychological-wellbeing/ and http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/25/alter-your-thinking-with-meditation-for-mental-health/).  One mindfulness based technique, Detached Mindfulness is designed to assist the OCD sufferer to look more mindfully and objectively at their obsessive thoughts as they arise. In theory, this should help them disengage from the biases underlying their thinking.

 

In today’s Research News article “Cognitive restructuring and detached mindfulness: Comparative impact on a compulsive checking task.”

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Ludvik and colleagues compared a no-treatment control to Cognitive Restructuring and to

Detached Mindfulness for their effectiveness in treating the thoughts underlying repetitive checking behaviors in OCD.  They found that both the Cognitive Restructuring and Detached Mindfulness were effective in reducing rechecking behaviors. The repeated checking behaviors in OCD produce distrust for the individual’s memories. Detached Mindfulness was shown to be superior to Cognitive Restructuring in relieving this distrust of memory. Thus, it appears that a simple mindfulness exercise can be effective in intervening in OCD thoughts and behaviors and improving the individual’s trust for their own memory.

 

It should be mentioned that these results occurred with a laboratory model of OCD employed with undergraduate students. It remains for future research to demonstrate the effectiveness of Detached Mindfulness in the real world treatment of OCD. But, it would seem reasonable that a technique that brought about a real time non-judgmental awareness of the obsessive thoughts would be of significant help in relieving the individual from the torture of OCD.

 

So, practice mindfulness and stop compulsive checking.

 

“I have got this obsessive compulsive disorder where I have to have everything in a straight line, or everything has to be in pairs.” – David Beckham

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

 

 

Change Your Brain for Better Health with Yoga

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“The autonomic nervous system is divided into the sympathetic system, which is often identified with the fight-or-flight response, and the parasympathetic, which is identified with what’s been called the relaxation response. When you do yoga – the deep breathing, the stretching, the movements that release muscle tension, the relaxed focus on being present in your body – you initiate a process that turns the fight or flight system off and the relaxation response on. That has a dramatic effect on the body. The heartbeat slows, respiration decreases, blood pressure decreases. The body seizes this chance to turn on the healing mechanisms.” – Richard Faulds

 

The practice of yoga has many benefits for the individual’s physical and psychological health. Yoga has diverse effects because it is itself diverse having components of exercise, mindfulness meditation, and spirituality. So, yoga nourishes the body, mind, and spirit. As a result, yoga practice would be expected to produce physical changes. These include the relaxation response and stress relief as suggested in the above quote. These should be obvious in the muscles, tendons and joints, but, less obvious in the nervous system.

 

The nervous system changes in response to how it is used and how it is stimulated in a process called neuroplasticity. Highly used areas grow in size and connectivity. Mindfulness practices in general are known to produce these kinds of changes in the structure and activity of the brain (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/01/this-is-your-brain-on-meditation/). Indeed, yoga practice has been shown to protect the brain from age related degeneration (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/age-healthily-protect-the-brain-with-yoga/).

 

In today’s Research News article “Effects of yoga on brain waves and structural activation: A review.”

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Desai and colleagues review the literature on the effects of yoga practice on the structure and activity of the nervous system. They found that the published evidence indicates that there is an overall increase in brain wave activity. This increased nervous system activity may explain the decreases in anxiety and increases in focus that are evident after yoga training programs.

 

They also found that there were reported changes in brain structure. There were reported increases in the gray matter volume overall and also increases in volume of specific areas. There was reported to be increased gray matter in the insula which may explain decreased pain perception with yoga. There was reported to be an increase of hippocampal volume which is associated with spatial ability and memory. In addition, increases in amygdala and frontal cortex activation were evident after a yoga intervention. This was suggested to be associated with improved emotion regulation.

 

Regardless of the specific structure-function relationships, it’s clear that yoga practice alters the brain, increasing overall activity and increasing the volume of gray matter in areas of the brain that underlie emotion regulation, memory, spatial ability, pain, and attentional mechanisms.

 

So, practice yoga and change your brain for better physical and psychological health.

 

“The beauty is that people often come here for the stretch, and leave with a lot more.” – Liza Ciano

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Age Healthily with Qigong – Soothing Stress Responses

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“Those who think they have no time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.” – Edward Stanley

 

Stress takes a toll on the physiology. This is particularly so in aging. Stress accelerates cellular aging, amplifying the breakdown of cells that occurs with age. It can accelerate sensory losses with aging, including vision and hearing loss. Stress weakens the immune system, making the elderly more susceptible to infections and disease. It even contributes the development of Alzheimer’s Disease. In addition, people under stress tend to try to deal with it in unhealthy ways, including drugs and alcohol, poor diet, and lack of exercise. The sum of all of these negative consequences of chronic stress shows up in a reduction of longevity. So, stress can make the aging age faster, reduce quality of life, and make the golden years not so golden.

 

It is known that exercise can help relieve stress and its effects. But, the aging body cannot generally tolerate vigorous exercise. But, the gentle mindful movement exercise practices of Tai Chi or Qigong are well tolerated by the elderly and appear to be very beneficial for health (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/aging-healthily-sleeping-better-with-mindful-movement-practice/ and http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/06/age-healthily-treating-insomnia-and-inflammation/). In addition,  Tai Chi or Qigong develop mindfulness and mindfulness practices are known to improve health and well-being in aging (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/age-healthily-mindfulness/) and reduce stress (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/29/get-your-calm-on/ and http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/destress-with-mindfulness/).

 

So, it would seem likely that mindful movement practice such as Qigong would serve both as an exercise and a mindfulness practice and improve the aging process. In today’s Research News article “Qi-gong training reduces basal and stress-elicited cortisol secretion in healthy older adults.”

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Ponzio and colleagues test this idea. They engaged older adults in generally poor health in a 12-week Qigong training. They measured activity of the stress hormone, cortisol and found that cortisol levels were lower at rest suggesting that they were less stressed after training. In addition, they found that when the participants were put under stress they had lower cortisol responses to the stress, suggesting that they responded to stress better. Finally, those who responded to the stress showed lower perceived stress than they expressed before the training.

 

These results suggest that Qigong can reduce stress and reactivity to stress in aging individuals. This is important as Qigong is gentle and well tolerated by the elderly. This ancient Chinese discipline appears to be an antidote to stress in aging and should produce health benefits as a consequence.

 

So, practice Qigong and soothe stress responses and age healthily.

 

“He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition, youth and age are equally a burden.” – Plato 

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

The Miracle of Awareness

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“The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.” – Aristotle
Probably the aspect of existence that is taken the most for granted is awareness. Additionally, it is also the least noticed and understood. I believe that this stems from the fact that awareness has always been there throughout our lives. It is a truism in Psychology that we learn to ignore things that do not change. Our nervous systems are tuned to note change and ignore constancy. So, our brains are designed to not notice our ever present, constant awareness.

 

But truly, our awareness is arguably the most miraculous component of our existence. Without realizing it, it is the presence of this awareness that convinces us that there is more to life than the physical and leads us to spirituality and religion. It is also our most mysterious component. It is extremely difficult to characterize, measure, or study making it almost impossible to explore in a scientific manner.

 

If one looks at their own awareness closely (in fact your personal awareness is the only one you can look at) you find that it’s your awareness that’s now looking for your awareness. It’s kind of like your ears trying to hear your ears. As we search, looking carefully and deeply, we don’t find anything there. The whole Buddhist notion of emptiness stems from this fact, that when you look you can’t find anything. But, it’s no wonder that nothing is found as what’s looking is what’s being sought.

 

Carefully looking at our awareness we can also come to realize that awareness is a seeing without being seen. It’s an unexperienced experience; a perceiverless perceiver; an effectless effect! In other words it’s an end point of thought and sensory experience. It’s having an experience but nothing is experiencing it. It is in essence the end point on a causal chain, with no further causes and effects. How remarkable!

 

Our minds are designed to analyze cause effect chains. That is what has given us the ability to analyze our worlds and learn to control them. Identifying the cause of something provides the ability to control the occurrence of the effects, making us masters of our environment. It’s no wonder that this ability was favored in evolution.

 

But what can we make of things at the beginning or end of these chains? Our mind boggles at the notion of a causeless cause or an effectless effect. We end up inventing gods as the beginning point, the prime mover, that which has always existed without beginning, the causeless cause. For that matter we’ve also invented the notion of soul as the everlasting thing without end that has no further effects, the effectless effect. But, a moments reflection, clearly reveals that this doesn’t resolve the issue at all. It simply places a label on it and doesn’t explain it or add any understanding to the issue. This should make it clear that we have no chance of understanding these phenomena though using the minds tools of logic, reason, or science.

 

So, our minds cannot analyze or understand our awareness. This underscores the fact that our minds are very limited, which is why Suzuki Roshi referred to it as the “little mind.” Our awareness, on the other hand he termed the “big mind.” It encompasses the “little mind” but is itself vaster. It makes sense that awareness, the “big mind” cannot be analyzed by its subcomponent, the “little mind.”

 

So how can we look at awareness? The answer is that we can’t, we can only experience it. This is why the Buddha called his teachings Dhammaehipassiko, which means “Come and see for yourself.” Don’t try to understand it, just see it for yourself, just experience it.

 

If you take this frame of mind and just kick back and let the experience happen without thought, analysis, labels, or judgments, you begin to see the amazing miracle of your awareness. Every moment becomes magical. You revel in its ever changing diversity and beauty. You realize how precious this existence is and how special you are to be able to have it. Every moment is unique, a never to be experienced again treasure.

 

This is why the great modern sage, Thích Nhất Hạnh, states that “People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” 

 

There is some controversy as to whether Einstein actually said this but, it’s so meaningful that I’ll repeat it anyway; “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

 

So, stop ignoring it and pay attention to the greatest miracle of existence, your awareness. Jesus said that “The kingdom of heaven is spread upon the earth but men do not see it.” I would contend that what Jesus was referring to was our awareness. It is heaven on earth, but we don’t see it.

 

So, open our eyes to awareness and experience the miracle of heaven.

 

“Spirituality is meant to take us beyond our tribal identity into a domain of awareness that is more universal.” – Deepak Chopra

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Focus or Open up Attention with Meditation

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Attention involves being able to not only focus on a target but also to screen out irrelevant stimuli. In our daily lives we are confronted simultaneously with a myriad of stimuli both within a sense, e.g. lots of different visual stimuli simultaneously present, but also across senses, e.g sights, sounds, smells, touches all simultaneously present. This creates quiet a daunting task for us to focus appropriately and not be distracted by all of the other stimuli present.

 

Laboratory research simplifies these situations to better discern what is actually occurring with attention. One method is to ask a person to detect a particular stimulus when it is presented in combination with a number of irrelevant stimuli, distractors. The characteristics of the distractors can be manipulated to discern the nature of the conflict that occurs to deflect attention.

 

Mindfulness practice is directed at improving attention. (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/mindfulness-improves-mental-health-via-two-factors/ and http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/overcome-attention-problems-with-mindfulness/). But, not all mindfulness practices approach attention in the same way. Focused meditation requires a meditator to pay strict attention to a particular stimulus and not respond to other stimuli (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/24/beginning-meditation-getting-started-3-breath-following-2/), while open monitoring meditation has the meditator simply let all stimuli drift in and out of awareness without thinking about, judging, of attempting to hold onto any of them. (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/25/beginning-meditation-getting-started-4-open-monitoring-meditation/). These two forms of meditation trainings would be expected to have different effects on attention.

 

Laboratory attention tasks may be able to differentiate the between the two forms of meditation’s effects on attentional processes. In today’s Research News article “Meditation-induced cognitive-control states regulate response-conflict adaptation: Evidence from trial-to-trial adjustments in the Simon task”

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Colzato and colleagues test the effectiveness of focused meditation versus open monitoring meditation on the laboratory attention task called the Simon task. In the Simon task the individual is asked to press a key on the left if a stimulus is a particular color and a key on the right if the stimulus is another color. Competition is then set up by varying the position of the stimulus, either on the right or the left. Usually, when the position of the stimulus is opposite to the response key it takes longer to respond, indicating that the position was distracting attention.

 

Colzato and colleagues did not find a difference between the two meditation techniques on the Simon task as both groups showed delayed response times when the position of the stimulus and response were different. But, when the effect of one trial on the response on the next trial was analyzed, the focused meditation group showed much greater trial to trial fluctuations than the open monitoring meditation group. This suggests that learning to be open to all stimuli makes you less responsive to prior stimuli. On the other hand learning to focus on one stimulus makes changes more disruptive.

 

Hence, different meditation techniques prepare one differently for different tasks. Open monitoring meditation prepares one better for accepting varying stimuli while focused meditation prepares one better for shifting control from one mode to another.

 

Regardless, meditate to improve attentional mechanisms.

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Buffer Yourself from Neuroticism with Mindfulness

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“We have long observed that every neurosis has the result, and therefore probably the purpose, of forcing the patient out of real life, of alienating him from actuality.” – Sigmund Freud

 

We often speak of people being neurotic. But, do we really know what we’re talking about? Do we really know what it is? Neurosis is actually an outdated diagnosis that is no longer used medically. The disorders that were once classified as a neurosis are now more accurately categorized as post-traumatic stress disorder, somatization disorders, anxiety disorder, panic disorder, phobias, dissociation disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and adjustment disorder.

 

But, neuroticism is considered a personality trait that is a lasting characteristic of individuals. It is characterized by negative feelings, repetitive thinking about the past (rumination), and worry about the future, moodiness and loneliness. People who have this characteristic are not happy with life and have a low subjective sense of well-being and recognize that this state is unacceptable.

 

This relatively stable characteristic appears to be lessened by mindfulness training. Mindfulness training also has been found to improve individuals’ subjective well-being. So, it makes sense to think that mindfulness may be involved in the link between neuroticism and low subjective well-being. This possible link is explored in today’s Research News article “Curb your neuroticism – Mindfulness mediates the link between neuroticism and subjective well-being”

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Wenzel and colleagues studied individuals high in neuroticism and found that they tended to have negative mood and low vitality and general interest in life; that is low subjective well-being.

 

Wenzel and colleagues then added mindfulness to the prediction and found that mindfulness in part mediated the relationship between neuroticism and low subjective well-being especially in individuals who had high levels of neuroticism. It thus appears that neuroticism lowers mindfulness which in turn results in negative mood and low vitality and general interest in life. This suggests that being mindful may in part protect an individual from the effects of neuroticism on their well-being.

 

There are a number of potential explanations for these effects of mindfulness. Neuroticism is characterized by rumination and worry, which are thought processes centered on the past and future. Mindfulness, on the other hand, is an ability to focus on the present moment. Hence, mindfulness could be seen as an antidote to the past and future orientation in neuroticism.

 

Neuroticism is also characterized by moodiness and loneliness. Mindfulness has been shown to improve emotion regulation; the ability to feel and recognize an emotional state but be able to understand it and respond to it appropriately (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/20/regulate-emotions-with-mindfulness/ and http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/control-emotions-the-right-way-with-mindfulness/). So mindfulness would also appear to be an antidote for the moodiness involved in neuroticism. Indeed, it has been shown that mindfulness can reduce feelings of anger and depression and improve self-control among people with high neuroticism.

 

So, buffer yourself from neuroticism with mindfulness.

 

“Mindfulness has helped me succeed in almost every dimension of my life. By stopping regularly to look inward and become aware of my mental state, I stay connected to the source of my actions and thoughts and can guide them with considerably more intention.” – Dustin Moskovitz

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

See Things as They Are with Mindfulness

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“What we see depends mainly on what we look for.” ― John Lubbock

 

There are two ways that we can process sensory information; top-down or bottom-up. The idea of top-down perception is that perception is an active process involving selection, inference and interpretation. In other words what we are thinking or expecting effects how we experience the world. On the other hand the idea of bottom-up perception is that perception is a simple interpretation of the exact stimuli that are present in front of us. In other words we build our world view from the stimuli present.

 

Top-down processing, sometimes known as motivated perception, results in seeing what we expect to see or what we’ve been trained to see. Hence, our perception is colored by what we’ve experienced in the past and what we expect to see in the current situation. This can produce something that psychologists term a perceptual set. It is “a perceptual bias or predisposition or readiness to perceive particular features of a stimulus“. – Gordon Allport

 

Perceptual set works in two ways where the individual focuses attention on particular aspects of the sensory data based upon his/her expectations and where the individual has learned how to classify, understand and name selected data and what inferences to draw from it. So, what we perceive is not necessarily exactly what is there. Rather it’s what we want it to be. So, if you’re expecting to see a friend approaching you may initially perceive a stranger to be your friend.

 

Mindfulness practice has been shown to make the brain more efficient in sensory and perceptual processing (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/03/make-the-brain-more-efficient-with-meditation/). In addition, mindfulness practice is devoted to present moment awareness; seeing things just as they are. So, mindfulness practice may be seen as practicing bottom-up perceptual processing. It also schools the individual in non-judgmental awareness which is the antithesis of top-down processing. So, it would be expected that mindfulness would increase the likelihood of bottom-up processing and reduce the likelihood of top-down processing.

 

In today’s Research News article “Be open: Mindfulness predicts reduced motivated perception”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1093637380660187/?type=3&theater

Adair and colleagues investigate this notion by correlating the level of mindfulness of the individual with their tendency for top-down processing. They found that the higher the level of mindfulness the more likely that the individual will perceive bottom-up and the less likely that they will use top-down processing.

 

Hence, mindfulness does what it is purported to do, helping us to see things as they are and not what our minds are telling us that they should be. In a previous post (LINK TO Free Your Mind with Mindfulness – with RN Kuo) we discussed the fact that meditation tends to free thought processes from prior training and experiences. Today’s Research News suggests that mindfulness also frees our perceptual processes. This suggests that mindfulness is liberating and puts us in closer contact with what is; experiencing the world more accurately and thinking more clearly about what is.

 

So practice mindfulness and see things as they are.

 

“In this treacherous world

Nothing is the truth nor a lie.

Everything depends on the color

Of the crystal through which one sees it”

― Pedro Calderón de la Barca

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies