The Issues of Attention and Awareness

Chris Marti wrote: Aren't these two things really the same?

In a sense No. Presence is pre-reflective presencing, it is dependent co-arising in action. "Knowing of", or "knowing that", on the other hand, necessarily carries with it an "of", or "that". "Knowing" is transitive. So the "being present" in "knowing that I'm present" is by definition an object. But presencing cannot be taken as an object, so No, they can't be the same.

But in an a sense the answer is also Yes. There is no infinite regress with presence, because the "knowing" of the "knowing of" always already is. So any knowing, including that I'm present, is rimlessly manifested in presence, it's the manifestation of presencing like anything else.

Depending on the school of thought, being aware of being aware is either part and parcel of awareness, or it is not. But in many philosophies of mind that denotes the same phenomenon, even for starkly different terminology. That phenomenon (if we want to call it that, for this purpose) is what I mean above with presence. It's magical.

Unfortunately the prescription of "be present" can land at the someone who wants to direct, act and watch the play with the name "Being Present". Playing can be useful at times (speaking about myself here), but without realizing it's a play it turns out to be a lot of unnecessary baggage. It's an investment with no payoff, or at least not the one intended by a tradition like Buddhism.

A lot of traditions run the risk of leading the practioners towards depersonalization and disassociation. They talk about their thing, and the avid listeners clone and script themselves into numbness, as if that was the prize. Western Buddhism and its often dumb mindlessness of the so called mindfulness comes to mind. Politically it's a desaster. Spiritually I don't know, it's supposed to have a positive effect at least on mental health.

EDIT: It has for me, so I'm grateful for that, and I'm also happy for everyone who benefits from it. I don't want to disparage anyone who practices with a good heart.

As for mindfulness, I'd like to throw in a quote from Rob Burbea (from "The Wonder of Emptiness" of the retreat "Seeing that Frees" from 2012):

[A]ctually, the arising of mindfulness in any moment, or even the arising of the intention to be mindful, is not from the self. It's from all these conditions coming together... So for instance, if I'm mindful, if there is mindfulness in this moment, it's much more likely to "condition," we say, to give birth to a next moment of mindfulness. (...) If you have a history of ... practicing, and again and again, coming back to the breath, coming back to the moment, that's what we call "karma." You're actually setting up tendencies in the mind, conditioning pathways that are conditioned to make it more likely that, in the future, that mindfulness arises.

I don't have any beef with such a mindfulness. But that's indeed something different than the "being aware of being aware" you mention in the OP.

Chris Marti wrote: Everything is dependently co-arising, including the sense that we're aware of being aware, aware of being present, the experience that we're being mindful in any given moment, or just being present with any other experience. My question is why do people hold mindfulness out as a special case, a more important case, of experience?

Following the Theravada Abhidhamma, mindfulness, the awareness of the roots of the citta we experience in any moment, is an important spiritual force. By being mindful we cultivate the wholesome and abandon the unwholesome roots. It's a co-arising sankhara, not just any sankhara, but of the (in meditators) commonly co-arising beautiful kind.

From the above description I can see good reasons to be mindful, even if I don't buy into karma. I can therefore understand why it has such a good reputation. But I wouldn't go as far as saying it's a "more important" case of experience. Maybe "more helpful" for walking the path than other, less skillful mind factors?

This is all highly dependend on the lenses I use to look at myself and the world. From what I read, at least some Vajrayana practitioners don't find that kind of sutric purification appealing.

I understand mindfulness as a stance, not a gesture (see here for explanation). It's a felt dimension of experiencing.

Being mindful in this sense allows me to get closer to the stirrings in the bodymind. The value comes from being able to progressively quieten the mind.

Other qualities I cultivate in this context are alertness and ardency. Mindfulness is "just" keeping something in mind. Alertness wakes me up and ardency supplies the energy for that.

In concentration practice I don't reduce mindfulness, alertness or ardency to more basic experience.

Chris Marti wrote: Does your experience of mindfulness occur in serial or parallel fashion? Said another way, does mindfulness occur at the same time as other experiences, or at a different time? (BTW - this happens fast - we have to be tuned into pretty high-frequency experiences to see it).

Why do you ask this?

Yes, I heard you asking, I wanted to know why you ask.

Chris, I've never done Mahasi noting or other high-frequency vipassana. I thus lack the temporal resolution to answer the question in your conceptual framework.

For me mindfulness feels more simultaneous than serial. It's a bit like a color in the visual periphery - - I can know it's there, seen from the corner of the eye, while I can attend something else in a serial fashion. In the same way I don't have to verbally remind myself with mindfulness, but it's enough to keep something in awareness, in the back of the mind.

Any investigation has the potential to reveal a different view, IMHO. Does "higher frequency" automatically mean "deeper"? Does "not caring about frequency" automatically mean "less deep"?

EDIT: Sounds like "your" mindfulness takes a bit more time than no mindfulness, because of its sequential nature. Is that the reason that you believe mindfulness is in a way superfluous and getting in the way of "the experience itself"?

Chris Marti wrote:

Is that the reason that you believe mindfulness is in a way superfluous and getting in the way of "the experience itself"?

The bigger issue lies in the hierarchy implied by those who reify mindfulness as a "better" way to be. I think mindfulness is a better way to be only if we're not interested in getting to the bottom of experience the way we do in meditation practices aimed at doing just that, which is the vast majority of practices. Mindfulness is a useful tool to use while we learn to pay attention, to focus, the investigate. I think that's where it stops. This was raised on the other topic: we don't get to choose as much as we think we do (another one of those habitual stories that is revealed to be less than accurate as we learn more). We're ultimately aiming to be able to experience our lives without the overhead we need when we start the practice. At some point, we should be seeking to abandon the raft that gets us across the river.

In the previous post you wrote:

I'm not making value judgments. There are ways of practicing that don't involve the processes that Mahasi-style noting and vipassana investigation use, and those are very successful practices. Each has its merits and downsides.

So do you give other practitioners the benefit of the doubt if they have a different view on their reality, or do you think your conceptual framework is what is "ultimately true"?

From reading MCTB (1 in particular, less so 2) I know that e.g. Daniel Ingram thinks that all traditions would accept his view if they were honest or skillful enough.

EDIT: To my knowledge, not all traditions think that mindfulness is to be discarded.

EDIT 2: Please disregard this post, it doesn't add anything to the discussion. This time it's my turn to say "Anyways, I'll shut up and leave."

I found in time (but only after a very long time) that the act of being 'mindful', or adopting any other 'mental posture' or 'stance' seemed like a kind of attempt to manipulate my experience and thus a kind of evasion of reality or argument with God or complaint. How do I know how things should be right now? It is interesting to question practices and question practice motivations at regular intervals! "What am I trying to make happen here? What do I hope to get out of it? What if I didn't do that?"

There are phases of practice where sticking with rigorous effort-driven and structured practices are very helpful. There can also be a great deal of arrogance in thinking oneself 'beyond' needing to do any kind of 'practice' anymore. But certainly ones relationship to practice can and should change over time. But I think that only ever can and will happen when God sees fit; everyone takes their own wandering way and comes from such varied conditions.

Chris Marti wrote: Does your experience of mindfulness occur in serial or parallel fashion? Said another way, does mindfulness occur at the same time as other experiences, or at a different time? (BTW - this happens fast - we have to be tuned into pretty high-frequency experiences to see it).

love this question. I haven't been hanging around friends with vipassana backgrounds lately, and you just don't get this kind of question from the advaita/dzogchen crew. mine is clearly serial. attention pings back and forth between the stimulus and the thing experiencing the stimulus, which when I am not being lazy in looking seems to be just another quieter thought.

to your earlier questions, I still don't know what "being present" means. the value of being aware of awareness for me seems to be 1) I am less likely to follow thoughts, and 2) partially (but maybe not solely - not sure) as a result of 1, I feel better. my body feels more relaxed, visual and auditory stimuli have a more pleasant tone, and there is a background mumbled thought of "this is beneficial/this is sustainable". so in that sense, my reason to walk around with attention on awareness is exactly like the reason I would use to walk around listening to good music or on good drugs (except I don't have the beneficial/sustainable thoughts in connection with those exercises).

I agree totally with Ona's comment that this practice, more and more, feels like an argument with God - in fact I am most persistent with the practice when reality is not suiting my preference and there are angry thoughts along lines of "if this is Your current symphony, you can shove it, I'm going to go hide in awareness where I can't hear it too loudly." in other words, the flavor of "NO" inherent in the practice is very palpable.

Is it possible that when people say they are being mindful or in awareness or present or not caught up in thoughts what they ACTUALLY mean is:

"I am not currently experiencing any tension, pain, or stress." ??

Can one be mindful, present, etc. in a state of pain, stress or tension? (I'd say sure, but I wonder if that is sometimes used as a marker of "doing it right" or "not doing it right"). Does that make sense?

I think it might not make sense... lol

Chris Marti wrote: Everything is dependently co-arising, including the sense that we're aware of being aware, aware of being present, the experience that we're being mindful in any given moment, or just being present with any other experience. My question is why do people hold mindfulness out as a special case, a more important case, of experience?

This is a topic that stirs my mind, and usually leaves me with a headache Do we really have any control about any of this? Or is experience just unfolding with/without the misbelief that there is a "we" that has any direct ability to change/influence dependent arising?

So...Everything is dependently co-arising and it's as if the concept that we are "un-awakened" is only that we are somehow pretending that this is not the case. Just like we pretend that the events of a movie are actually taking place while we watch it, in order to enjoy the experience as a spectator. If awareness wants to awaken, then the causes are already in place, and we will be drawn to what ultimately works. I don't think it matters what we call it or how we do it- if the causes are there, the effect will arise. I have no great analogy to explain this.

Both the "fun" part and the "pain in the ass" part of the spiritual journey, I guess, lies in our born-in suspended disbelief that gives us the sense that we are striving diligently on our own volition towards awakening by doing the correct practices. Does that make any sense?

Said another way, and in the form of a question: Can we, separate from dependent origination, decide to do awakening practices on our own?

If the answer is yes, then maybe the techniques and philosophies we use and how well we use them actually are super important on making spiritual progress.
If the answer is no, then it is, just as we always knew- turtles all the way down, and nothing we do in the dreamstate matters... this is all just "us" playing a video game and having spirited discussions on how to get to the next level.

I personally have this sense that I am doing something worthwhile with my spiritual training and there is a mysterious energy pulling me forward, BUT I also have an contralateral sense that I don't own any of this experience and I am just watching a movie play on. However, I keep catching myself believing in my character and getting worked up about specific techniques and practices and ultimate meanings of things (similar to how your heart races during an exciting scene in a movie despite you not being actually a part of the action). Yes, the better and the more pristine my attention gets, the more often I notice these things, but am I the one in the movie making things happen, or just a spectator being aware of the struggle that the actor is pretending to be having, which is also me?

Maybe mindfulness is just another tool in the tool box and the better question is why do we need a toolbox? Doesn't this life all just seem like a fantasy that something we call "awareness" just cooked up for its own amusement?

Note: this dialog is about 35% hyperbole for effect

Chris Marti wrote:

Can one be mindful, present, etc. in a state of pain, stress or tension? (I'd say sure, but I wonder if that is sometimes used as a marker of "doing it right" or "not doing it right"). Does that make sense?

Seriously, I think there are quite a few myths floating around in the dharma ether. I do think that practitioners get too focused on things like "successful meditation," feeling happy, not feeling pain/suffering, and not having negative emotions. So when those things are perceived to be going well it skews the perception of the practice itself. It's like curing a disease by focusing on the symptoms. That is the underlying reason for the first question I raised about mindfulness. Without investigating the cause and focusing just on the symptom (being present) we miss the most fruitful benefit and ultimate value of this practice (understanding how mind works).

I like how Ken McLeod talks about being glad when anger arises (Wake up to your life). Negative emotions are one of the best phenomena for cultivating attention and you can have better investigation of causes/symptoms of reactive mind when reviewing moments of anger, much more than the times you were quietly drinking tea with a head full of equanimity. This is the true advantage of the lay practitioner - we can get on the highway and get a strong dose of road rage to use in our spiritual practice!