Author's personal copy
Mindfulness (2015) 6:910–925
DOI 10.1007/s12671-014-0337-8
ORIGINAL PAPER
Mindfulness Contextualized: An Integration of Buddhist
and Neuropsychological Approaches to Cognition
Ravi S. Kudesia & Ven. Tashi Nyima
Published online: 16 September 2014
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract A significant limiting factor in the current mindful-
ness literature is that while core concepts have been incorpo-
rated into Western psychology, they appear in a
decontextualized manner. This causes construct validity issues
as evidenced by vastly diverging definitions of key terms. In
this paper, a behavioral scientist and Buddhist monk collabo-
rate to help address this limitation. We begin with an in-depth
and accessible review of Buddhist psychology from a partic-
ular Tibetan tradition. This review covers descriptive models
of core cognitive processes as well as the prescriptive mind
training approach designed to refine these processes. Instead
of attempting to transfer these Buddhist constructs to Western
psychology piecemeal, however, we then highlight important
higher-order parallels between the two disciplines. These par-
allels clarify the cognitive underpinnings of enlightenment
and how enlightenment differs from conventional modes of
stimulus processing. We close by offering a contextualized
definition of mindfulness that integrates both Buddhist and
Western accounts of the phenomenon.
Keywords Mindfulness . Buddhism . Construct .
Cross-cultural . Psychology
Abbreviations
AN Aṅguttara Nikāya
MN Majjhima Nikāya
SN Samyutta Nikāya
R. S. Kudesia (*)
Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis, Campus
Box 1156, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
e-mail: rskudesia@wustl.edu
V. T. Nyima
New Jonang Buddhist Community, Dallas, TX, USA
Introduction
As a literature, mindfulness appears to be flourishing in recent
years. This is encouraging given early Western treatments that
described Buddhist meditation as a “libidinal, narcissistic turning
of the urge for knowing inward, a sort of artificial schizophrenia
with complete withdrawal of libidinal interest from the outside
world” (Alexander 1931, p. 130). That today psychoanalysts like
Alexander (1931) who considered meditation a form of “artificial
catatonia” have fallen out of favor while the use of meditation in
clinical settings (e.g., mindfulness based stress reduction
(MBSR), mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT), accep-
tance and commitment therapy (ACT)) becomes increasingly
prevalent shows a sea change in attitudes and practices.
However, despite the growth in application of these Buddhist
practices and teachings, there is not necessarily a commensurate
growth in their understanding. It is almost banal for mindfulness
researchers to lament the lack of clear definitions for key
constructs and the limited ability to move beyond documenta-
tions that these interventions work to sound theoretical explana-
tions as to why they work.
A key source of this difficulty is that the Buddhist meta-
theoretical assumptions implicit in mindfulness practices are
not fully compatible with those underlying Western psychol-
ogy. To illustrate this point, the theoretical physicist David
Bohm once noted that the English word “measure” derives
from “maya,” the Sanskrit word for illusion (Bohm 1980).
Accordingly, Buddhists never sought to quantify mindfulness,
seeing it as a subjective state of mental experience that is
fundamentally inexpressible (Trungpa and Goleman 2005).
And even when defining the term, Buddhist hermeneutic
practices purposefully utilize “mindfulness” in a variety of
contexts, which makes reaching construct validity standards
difficult (Gyatso 1992; Lutz et al. 2007). However, the meta-
theoretical differences between Buddhist and Western traditions
run deeper than how terms are defined and operationalized.
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Mindfulness (2015) 6:910–925
Indigenous South Asian psychology, of which Buddhism is a
part, understands the nature of mental phenomena quite different-
ly than does its Western counterpart (Rao 2005). While some such
differences, such as the focus on embodied cognition, are amena-
ble to Western psychologists, others, such as the existence of
mental activity independent of the brain, are less readily accepted.
As a result, despite its old age, mindfulness faces new
challenges. Because constructs can be understood only in
relation to other constructs and the network of laws that relate
them (Cronbach and Meehl 1955), we can see that taking a
construct like mindfulness from one network and applying it
to another is not a simple task. The laws that define the
construct in one network are unlikely to have direct corre-
spondence in the other. It is akin to taking a piece from one
puzzle and expecting it to fit in another. This is perhaps the
predominant difficulty in obtaining a complete and coherent
definition for the mindfulness construct.
In this paper, undertaken collaboratively by a behavioral
scientist and Buddhist monk, we respond to calls from prom-
inent mindfulness researchers for greater conceptual clarity
through a fuller and more faithful interpretation of its Buddhist
roots (e.g., Chiesa 2012; Grossman and Van Dam 2011; Lutz
et al. 2007; Mikulas 2007). We argue that Buddhist constructs
cannot be transferred to Western psychology piecemeal be-
cause a construct has no meaning without its context. Thus,
for mindfulness to find its proper place within Western psy-
chology, we must first more fully understand the network of
Buddhist psychological constructs in which it originated. We
explicitly do not argue that Western psychology must carry
forward Buddhism’s meta-theoretical assumptions or network
laws. Instead, in this article, we seek to first portray a tradi-
tional Buddhist conceptualization of mindfulness in its own
right and then identify higher-order parallels between it and its
Western counterpart. More specifically, we propose hybrid
Buddhist–Western models for two important processes. First,
we link psychological accounts of stimulus processing with
the Buddhist process of interdependent co-arising to describe
the conventional mode of cognition. Second, we link cogni-
tive neuropsychological accounts of mindfulness meditation
with Buddhist constructs to clarify the purpose of mind train-
ing and more fully elucidate what enlightenment means in
practical terms. We conclude by offering an operational defi-
nition of mindfulness that integrates both Buddhist and
Western accounts of the phenomenon. In doing so, we hope
to help these two important traditions of inquiry into mental
phenomena better support and develop each other.
Background and Significance
As the need for greater integration of Buddhist and Western
psychologies is well acknowledged, our efforts are certainly
not alone. For example, religion scholars have charted core
concepts of Buddhist psychology (Rhys Davids 1936/1978;
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Waldron 2003), Buddhist practitioners have commented upon
the mindfulness construct (Bodhi 2011), psychology and neu-
roscience researchers have expanded the context of mindful-
ness meditation (Walsh and Shapiro 2006; Lutz et al. 2007;
Grabovac et al. 2011) and critiqued existing definitions
(Grossman 2008, 2011), and interdisciplinary teams have
discussed differences in models of emotion (Ekman et al.
2005). In large part, we seek to supplement, support, and
integrate this work by providing a more comprehensive map-
ping of Buddhist psychology while focusing specifically on
issues relevant to the current mindfulness literature.
We suggest, however, the need for a precise discontinuity.
As Lopez (2002) eloquently argues, much of the extant mind-
fulness literature draws from a single stream of sources that
does not adequately represent the overall tradition. This par-
ticular reading emerged largely in conversation with Western
sources from 1873 to 1980, relying primarily on “popular and
semischolarly” works to reconcile Buddhism with European
Enlightenment values and speak to “the needs of the modern
world” (McMahan 2008, pp. 8–9). Many attempts to integrate
Western and Buddhist psychologies draw on this stream,
which is itself an integration.
In this article, we suggest three point of divergence from
this stream that would benefit future work. First, it often
conceives of the problem addressed by Buddhism rather nar-
rowly, equating the term suffering (duhkha) with negative
˙
affect, making Buddhist psychology a form of self-help or
therapy to increase happiness. The cessation of suffering
referred to by Buddhism denotes a fundamental transforma-
tion of cognitive processes, which is either left unaddressed or
couched in mystical terms. We help ground it in established
principles of cognitive neuropsychology, which opens new
paths of research inquiry. Second, far too often, mindfulness
meditation is seen as an isolated intervention, separate from
the larger set of practices and worldviews. This has rightly
been argued to lead to “enfeebled” trainings (Teasdale et al.
2003, p. 157). While treated in book length works (e.g.,
Trungpa and Goleman 2005), we hope to provide a concise
summary that can help researchers better contextualize this
practice. Third, mindfulness is often defined strictly in terms
of attention to the present moment. We hope to augment this
view by portraying mindfulness more fully as a state charac-
terized by heightened meta-awareness, decreased discursive
cognition, and goal-directed attention regulation.
Instead of starting with the already integrated stream iden-
tified by Lopez (2002), we took the current state of cognitive
neuropsychology and a traditional view of Buddhism and
sought to identify higher-order parallels. Buddhism, however,
is by no means monolithic. It should be noted therefore that
this paper does not intend to and cannot speak to all Buddhist
views. To provide greater conceptual depth rather than a
broader but more superficial survey, we therefore utilized a
Tibetan view called the Great Middle Way (Skt. mahā
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mādhyamaka; Tbt. dbUma chenpo) that we felt would provide
a valuable theoretical grounding. These teachings emerged
from a unique synthesis undertaken by the 14th century monk
Dölpopa Sherab Gyaltsen (see Stearns 2010). His goal was to
meta-analyze hundreds of Buddhist texts and create a “dharma
language” of conceptual frameworks and key distinctions that
helped elucidate the truth underlying Buddhist psychology.
We feel that this presentation of Buddhism makes explicit
certain parallels to Western approaches that may otherwise
go unnoticed. Thus, although our treatment is rooted in a
particular tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, we believe our
models will generalize more broadly and add unique value
to our understanding of mindfulness.
Ignorance and Enlightenment
In much the same way that power is the central construct of
sociology or utility the central construct of economics, igno-
rance is perhaps the central defining concept of Buddhist
psychology. As will be explicated later, Buddhist psychology
seeks to trace all subjective mental phenomena back to their
root. It posits that self-consciousness, emotions, discursive
cognition, and other activities of the mind that characterize
conventional waking consciousness stem from a profound
ignorance (avidyā) of reality as it is. Upon realizing the nature
of reality, the existential ignorance that enables these psycho-
logical phenomena dissipates. What remains then is an alter-
native way of experiencing and relating to the world, which is
called enlightenment (bodhi). Although certainly soteriologi-
cal in nature, the freedom promised by Buddhist psychology
is not otherworldly. It does not claim that one’s external
environment will change into a heaven, but instead that one’s
mental environment will change so as to eliminate the causes
of suffering here on earth. Conventional existence (samsāra)
˙
and enlightened existence (nirvāna) thus differ based on the
˙
nature of one’s subjective experience.
As such, Buddhist psychology serves two functions. The
first is descriptive in identifying conscious and unconscious
factors at work in the conventional human mind. The second
is prescriptive in that it seeks to remedy ignorance and thereby
reveal the enlightened mind. Mindfulness and its related con-
cepts stem from prescriptive Buddhist psychology and must
be viewed in context of its descriptive counterpart. To know
the remedy, one must first know the problem. Therefore, we
begin by mapping descriptive Buddhist psychology.
Descriptive Buddhist Psychology
Descriptive Buddhist psychology approaches mental phenom-
ena sequentially: beginning with the most superficial and
rapidly fluctuating aspects and working its way back to their
Mindfulness (2015) 6:910–925
more subtle and stable unconscious antecedents (see Waldron
2003, 2008). These various components of conscious experi-
ence are then used to explain the course of typical human
behavior through the model of interdependent co-arising
(pratītya-samutpāda). According to tradition, the Buddha
equated comprehension of interdependent co-arising with
comprehension of his entire teaching (MN I 191). For this
reason, an understanding of mindfulness necessitates an un-
derstanding of the model of descriptive psychology that un-
derlies it.
The Process-Oriented Approach
One will notice right away that the Buddhist approach
to psychology is more mechanistic than agentic and
favors emergence over reduction. There are no autono-
mous entities such as “I, the mind, the subject” or “it,
the world, the object”—there is only a complex of
mental processes that predictably arise given certain
causes and conditions (see Fig. 1). It is not that the
physical world gives rise to our subjective experience
(i.e., that consciousness emerges from the brain; real-
ism) or that our minds project the world into being (i.e.,
that the world is a dream; idealism). It is that neither
physical existence nor subjective experience has any
inherent existence (svabhāva) apart from the other: the
two co-arise and depend on each other (i.e., interdepen-
dent co-arising).
As such, a distinguishing feature of Buddhist psychol-
ogy is the idea of no-self (anātman). The self as an
independently existing, stable, and substantive agent that
exerts downward control over mental activity is seen as a
byproduct of ignorance, a misguided reification of dispa-
rate mental processes. Reification creates a sense of self
separate from the world and a sense of an objective
world separate from subjective interpretation, both prop-
ositions that Buddhists find to be untenable. In fact, the
tradition espoused here describes any worldview or cog-
nitive process that enables subject–object dualism as
false and limiting. The focus is therefore on mental
processes (not “the mind”) and conditional factors (not
solid causal agents) that enable these processes. By de-
fining ignorance as a reified view that separates subject
and object, descriptive Buddhist psychology enables its
prescriptive counterpart to focus on training the mind to
attain a qualitatively different cognitive state that is non-
dual in nature, known as enlightenment.
It is therefore necessary to understand how and why
Buddhism holds this unique view of the mind. As we proceed,
we do so with full understanding of language’s limitations.
Although syntax tends to reify processes into things and
operate in terms of subject–object duality, we do our best to
convey these ideas without doing so.
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Mindfulness (2015) 6:910–925
The Model of Mental Activity
Cognitive Consciousness The superficial mental processes
are known as cognitive consciousness (pravrtti vijñāna) and
˙
are categorized into six types. They are visual (caksur vijñāna),
˙
auditory (śrota vijñāna), olfactory (ghrāna vijñāna), gustatory
˙
(jihva vijñāna), tactile (sparśa vijñāna), and mental (mano
vijñāna). In line with Buddhism’s process-oriented approach
to psychology, cognitive consciousness is not a mental faculty
that one possesses or an action that one performs. It is an
experience that emerges from the interaction of an object of
perception (indriya-artha) and an organ of perception (indriya)
(SN II 73). If the eyes are closed or the object removed, visual
consciousness disappears. If the ears stop functioning or a
sound is muted, auditory consciousness disappears. Again,
Buddhism emphasizes how perceptual experiences emerge
from the simultaneous engagement of a means of cognizing
with something to cognize, showing the interdependence of
supposed subject and object. As Buddhism asserts, “apart from
conditions there is no arising of cognitive consciousness” (MN
I 258).
Afflictive Consciousness The arising of the cognitive con-
sciousnesses can be adaptive only if the data it provides is
properly utilized. We conventionally make sense of its data
through the facilitation of afflictive consciousness (klista mano
˙˙
vijñāna), which has four latent (anuśaya) and five manifest
(kleśa) components. By interpreting cognitive conscious-
nesses through the components of afflictive consciousness,
our perceptual experiences can lead us astray. To understand
how this occurs, we must begin by surveying the latent aspects
of afflictive consciousness. The first latent affliction is, appro-
priately, ignorance (avidyā). Consider even a simple occur-
rence of visual consciousness: our eye may come into contact
with an object of perception and remark, “I see a blue river.”
Even such a simple statement is enabled by ignorance because
it is dualistic. It takes a stream of mental phenomena and
falsely parses it into a stable observing subject that perceives
an independently existing object.
This tradition of Buddhism asserts that there is neither
subject nor object here that can withstand logical analysis.
For example, the statement ascribes color to the river, as if it
were a property contained by the object. However, colors are
not objective realities out there in the world. They arise “from
the interaction of our bodies, our brains, the reflective prop-
erties of objects, and electromagnetic radiation” and the blue-
ness of the river does not exist “independent of retinas, color
cones, neural circuitry, and brains” (Lakoff and Johnson 1999,
pp. 24–25). Further, our color categories stem from our cul-
ture’s language, not from objects (Özgen 2004). The same
object reflecting light at 450 nm would be classified by a
Berinmo speaker from Papua New Guinea as green, an
English speaker as blue, and a Turkish speaker as dark blue
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due to differences between their languages (Roberson et al.
2000; Özgen and Davies 1998). In each case, the information
reaching an individual’s retinas is the same; however, because
the mental experience of color emerges from the interaction of
perceptual organ and object of perception, each individual
constructs this experience differently. To say “I see a blue
river” is to function under the spell of ignorance. Buddhists
would rather say, “An internal mental representation of a blue
river rose into awareness from the interplay of my eyes,
cognitive schemas, and some perceptual object.”
Because of our tacit dualism, we see ourselves as objective
subjects viewing an objective physical world instead of real-
izing that the apparent subject and object are co-created, false
dichotomies imposed on a non-dual mental experience. Thus,
the latent affliction of ignorance enables the view of an inde-
pendently existing self (satkāya drsti), which, in turn, enables
˙˙˙
a sense of superiority of that self (asmimāna) and attachment
to that self (ātmasneha). The simple parsing of perceptual
experiences into subject and object thus enables maladaptive
self-views. These four latent afflictions (ignorance, view of
an independent self, self-superiority, and self-attachment) are
then manifested into maladaptive behaviors through feelings
that Buddhism calls the five poisons (pañca kleśavisa).
˙
Because we process experience in dualistic terms when under
the influence of latent afflictions, our resultant actions also
stem from those misperceptions. When as a subject we en-
gage with an inanimate object, we experience attachment
(rāga), aversion (dvesa), or indifference (moha). As we see
˙
ourselves as separate from objects and attribute stable qual-
ities to these objects, we either want to possess and maintain
them (i.e., attachment), separate from and destroy them (i.e.,
aversion), or feel apathy towards them (i.e., indifference). As
we also see ourselves as separate from other individuals, we
approach them either with arrogance (māna) if we think
ourselves better than them or envy (ı̄rsya) if we think our-
˙
selves worse off than them. It is, of course, true that the
qualities we attribute as inherent to other people and objects
are at least as mentally constructed as the colors we attribute
to the river. That we project qualities onto others is one of the
earliest and most basic findings in modern Western psychol-
ogy (e.g., Jung 1951). Therefore, when perceptual data from
the cognitive consciousnesses are translated through this
layer of afflictive consciousness, latent subject–object duality
manifests a maladaptive way of relating to both objects and
people, which we call the five poisons (i.e., attachment,
aversion, indifference, arrogance, and envy).
Ground Consciousness Buddhist psychology, however, does
not stop with the latent causes for dualistic cognition and its
ramifications. It posits that consciousness has a ground or
substratum (ālaya vijñāna), which is unconscious and inac-
cessible to the majority of people. It is perhaps worth noting
that the existence of the unconscious, while a revelation upon
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Fig. 1 Buddhist model of the eight consciousnesses
Freud’s introduction in the early 20th century, had already
been understood and charted for over two millennia in
Buddhist thought (see Waldron 2008). The Buddhist uncon-
scious is also, at times, called the storehouse consciousness
because of its main function: retaining and organizing experi-
ence. The key guiding principle of Buddhist psychology is
action (karma) and consequence (karma-phala). The stream of
subjective experience arises in response to conditions; each
moment of arising consciousness thus produces a karmic seed
(bīja) that may flower if facilitating conditions are repeated.
Over repeated activations of particular conditions, the resul-
tant mental activities and action tendencies become increas-
ingly accessible. In this way, the repeated flowering of karmic
seeds generates one’s personality schema (vāsanā), which is a
consistent pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that
characterize individuals and distinguish them from others
(Fleeson 2001; Kenrick and Funder 1988). Our personalities
are thus sculpted by the course of our past experiences and
actions. In Buddhism, the fact that individuals are born with
certain personalities is accounted for by the theory of rebirth:
ground consciousness persists after the body perishes and
generates new bodies as propelled by the flowering of karma.
Yet, to fully account for how these differences arise and are
maintained, we must turn to the role of cognitive schemas
(samskārā). Earlier we discussed how humans typically in-
˙
terpret perceptual input in dualistic and linguistic terms. We
separate experiences into subject and object and then label
the object with words; more often than not, mental
Mindfulness (2015) 6:910–925
consciousness provides a running commentary on our expe-
riences. Cognitive schemas explain how this process occurs.
The first five cognitive consciousnesses (i.e., visual, auditory,
olfactory, gustatory, and tactile) arise most strongly in re-
sponse to changes rather than constants. For example, we
notice when the air conditioning unit turns on, but not that it
has been running for some time. And because the sixth
cognitive consciousness (i.e., mental) operates through lan-
guage, it depends on distinctions provided by language. The
changes that we notice and distinctions we draw, however,
are also not grounded in the world “out there.” They stem
from our cognitive schemas, which serve to structure the
relationship between perceptual objects and perceptual or-
gans. For example, in referring to the statement “I see a blue
river,” we discussed how colors are determined by the lan-
guage and culture into which we were born: this is an exam-
ple of a cognitive schema. However even “the river” is a
cognitive schema. Consider how our native language affects
how we perceive reality. In English, we have the words
“river” and “stream”—in French, “fleuve” and “rivière.”
The words in English differ on the basis of size: a river is
larger than a stream. The French words instead differ in that a
fleuve flows to the sea while a rivière does not. Because we
think in terms of the concepts provided by our language, an
English speaker and a French speaker may see the exact same
flowing water, but understand it in very different ways. One
understands reality by judging size, the other by judging
direction (Culler 1986). In line with this insight, Gestalt
psychology noted how organization of perceptual data occurs
according to top-down schematic patterns (e.g., Wertheimer
1923) and the New Look in psychology noted how these
schemas or perceptual sets stem from past experience (e.g.,
Bruner and Postman 1949).
As such, we experience our self through our personality
schemas and our world through cognitive schemas, both of
which are constructed from and solidified by past experience.
Because our perceptual experiences are filtered through these
schemas before we consciously determine how to react to
them, we grow increasingly accommodated to the schemas.
New and incongruent information does not easily pass
through our personality and cognitive schemas. As such, the
constant flowering of karma reduces the breadth of our per-
ceptual experiences until, over time, we grow to have a rather
fixed and rigid assumptions about the world. Thus, while
schemas serve to conceptually structure our perceptual expe-
riences, we also have deeper and more rigid assumptions that
determine how much of reality we even allow into our aware-
ness to be structured. These fundamental assumptions are
known as appropriations (upādāna) and produce two worlds
for each of us. The first world or common appropriation
(bhājana-loka) is the shared human world in which we all
exist. By the very nature of our biological machinery, all
humans experience the world in similar ways. We are not
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Mindfulness (2015) 6:910–925
privy to the auditory or visual spectrum of other species. This
is not to say that one is better than the other, but simply that the
world in which a dog or mouse engages is a qualitatively
different one than the one we experience. Whatever reality
actually exists is defined by boundaries of our physiology. We
see only part of what is, and thus fashion our worlds with the
limited slice of reality available to us. Buddhism thus suggests
that our intersubjective world exists because of commonalities
in our physical form. Because it is based on our group’s
physiological makeup, it therefore has no inherent existence.
The second world or the uncommon appropriation (sattva-
loka) refers to the fact that we very much also live in our own
unique individual worlds that are to some degree distinct from
those of other people. As much as people share a great deal in
common in terms of the size and shape of the slice of reality
that they can access, their human experience can vary quite
vastly based on where they are, with whom they interact, how
they make sense of their experiences, etc. Thus, all people live
in a personal and socially constructed subjective world as well
as a physiologically constructed intersubjective world. In line
with the Buddhist argument that there is no subject apart from
the world and no world apart from the subject, we can see
through the ground consciousness how the two are dependent
on each other. There is no appearance of an external world in
which some internal subject participates without ground con-
sciousness. We do not see things as they are, we see things as
we are. According to tradition, the Buddha summarized this
teaching by saying “in this six-foot-long body with its percep-
tions and thoughts there is the world, the origin of the world,
the ending of the world, and the path leading to the ending of
the world” (AN IV 45).
Thus, to summarize, ground consciousness contains kar-
mic seeds derived from past experience. These seeds generate
stable personality and cognitive schemas that categorize the
individual personal world and intersubjective human world in
which we simultaneously live. In ground consciousness, we
see the antecedents of ignorance. It separates experience into
the subject, derived from personality schemas, and object,
derived from cognitive schemas, without realizing that both
are two sides of the same coin. There is no objective self or
objective world; there is only a series of interrelated processes
that operate on the basis of karma. Through repeated iteration,
seeds in the ground consciousness flower into increasingly
rigid views of the self and world. All perception is funneled
through these structures and all cognition occurs through their
frameworks. As ground consciousness becomes increasingly
stable, ignorance takes hold and thus emotional afflictions
arise on the basis of subject–object duality and behavior
becomes rather automatic and routine, and thus maladaptive.
Non-Referential Awareness In realizing that the subjective
experience of most people emerges from and is supported by
this fundamental ignorance, we also realize the possibility of
915
an alternative experience that emerges from and is supported
by the wisdom of enlightenment. This is what the Buddha
referred to as “the ending of the world” in the earlier quote.
Cognitive, afflictive, and ground consciousnesses all various-
ly serve to divide reality into subject and object. What then is
the nature of reality and experience before consciousness has
imposed its faulty interpretations? Buddhist psychology calls
this original and unconditioned reality non-referential aware-
ness (ālaya jñāna). In English, we often speak of awareness as
needing an object of which to be aware (e.g., “I am aware of
this idea”). When awareness functions in reference to some-
thing, Buddhism uses the term consciousness. Consciousness
engages with perceptual, cognitive, and affective phenomena.
Awareness, instead, is the space in which this engagement
occurs. To use an analogy, while cognitive and afflictive
consciousness refers to the squares and circles and ground
consciousness refers to the underlying grid, awareness is the
white paper upon which both the grids and shapes are drawn.
The major metaphysical difference between Buddhist and
Western psychology is in how awareness is understood. While
the relationship of mind and matter is a hotly debated subject
(see Chalmers 1995), the Western academy traditionally as-
sumes a stance of methodological naturalism, asserting that
awareness arises epiphenomenally from material brain struc-
tures. Although ontology was never an interest of this
Buddhist tradition, it has long posited that the realm of matter,
space, and time that enables conventional existence has a
beginning and an end, and thus cannot be said to be an
ultimate reality. Instead, according to tradition, when one
removes the false idea of an independent self and an indepen-
dent world, one realizes that essentially all of perceived reality
is simply mind (cittamātra). Recall how individual mental
activities develop our subjective world starting with subject–
object duality, constructing distinctions, and then interpreting
reality in ways that reinforce these distinctions and thus solid-
ify our worlds and make them rigid. In the same way, broader
collective mental activity produces the “objective” physical
world starting with scientific constants and basic distinctions
between matter, energy, etc., that then iteratively interpret
reality through physical laws which grow increasingly com-
plex and well specified over time. As this process iterates, it
also produces the intersubjective human world, which we
continue to iterate into our own subjective world.
For clarification of this counterintuitive concept, recall the
graphing paper analogy. One could draw and erase a million
different shapes on a piece of paper without changing the
nature of the paper. Similarly, just as the paper exists indepen-
dent of the shapes it contains, awareness exists independent of
apparent subjects and worlds it contains. The birth and death
of beings and the arising and dissolution of universes has no
bearing on awareness. Tradition sees awareness as the primor-
dial and unarisen underlying space in which conventional
reality plays out. However, the relationship between
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awareness and its contents is asymmetric. While the paper
exists independent of the shapes it contains, the shapes require
the paper for expression. Likewise, sentient beings and their
subjective, intersubjective, and physical worlds cannot possi-
bly exist outside of or apart from awareness. They are depen-
dent whereas awareness is independent.
This relationship between awareness and its contents leads
to a special insight utilized by Buddhist psychology: reality is
characterized by emptiness (śūnyatā) of two kinds: self-empty
and other-empty. Because all dependent phenomena that arise
within awareness do so on the basis of ignorance and subject–
object duality, they are self-empty (Tbt. rangtong), meaning
they lack any inherent existence. They depend on causes and
conditions for their arising and cannot exist apart from aware-
ness. However, non-referential awareness is other-empty (Tbt.
zhäntong) because it is “empty of” or unaffected by all depen-
dent phenomena arising within it and always maintains its
own autonomous higher-order nature. Although a growing
number of theoretical physicists support similar ideas on the
co-arising of subject and object (see Ricard and Thuan 2004;
Gyatso 2006), we are not attempting to assert their validity.
Instead, we are simply attempting to convey the full context in
which more familiar mindfulness-related concepts originated.
The Process of Interdependent Co-Arising
As a model of psychology, the eight consciousnesses (six
cognitive, afflictive, and ground) explain the composition of
conventional cognition. However, they do not provide an
account of the process by which it arises, how it becomes
conditioned into duality, and what kind of behavior emerges
as a result of this conditioning. This task falls to the process-
model of interdependent co-arising, which occurs in a precise
way that covers 12 causes (nidāna).
Fundamental ignorance (1. avidyā) that non-referential
awareness is the singular non-dual reality enables the forma-
tion of cognitive schemas (2. samskāra) in ground conscious-
˙
ness. These cognitive schemas are based on distinctions; once
developed, they therefore channel awareness into a referential
form, producing consciousness (3. vijñāna). Consciousness,
by its very nature, apprehends only a small slice of reality that
has name-and-form (4. nāmarūpa) and is thus interpretable
through the framework of linguistic and perceptual distinc-
tions. By reducing reality to only that which has name-and-
form, it becomes something that can be sensed (5. sadāyatana)
˙ ˙
through vision, hearing, olfaction, taste, touch, or thought. As
a result of limiting reality into only that which can be sensed,
cognitive consciousness arises through contact (6. sparśa)
between an object of perception and organ of perception.
When contact between an object and organ of perception
occurs, pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral feelings (7. vedanā)
arise. These various feelings provoke automatic responses or
cravings (8. trsnā) containing action tendencies to prolong
˙˙ ˙
Mindfulness (2015) 6:910–925
pleasant perceptions, remove unpleasant perceptions, and dis-
regard the neutral perceptions. These cravings produce attach-
ment (9. upādāna) that causes one to cling to their sense of an
individual self, their worldviews and behaviors regarding how
to perpetuate this self, and thus their desire to deliver pleasure
to this self through its six senses. It is attachment to self,
worldview, behaviors, and pleasure that enable becoming
(10. bhāva), the production of new karmic inertia that need
to be resolved. The generation of karmic inertia that needs
resolution leads to birth (11. jāti) of the physical body; after a
previous body has passed away, the mental continuity enables
a new body to arise. And, finally, the birth of any being under
a state of ignorance leads to the process of old age and death
(12. jarāmarana) along with the suffering their anticipation
˙
produces.
Prescriptive Buddhist Psychology
Having understood the mental processes underlying the con-
ventional experience of reality according to descriptive
Buddhist psychology, we now turn to its prescriptive counter-
part. While the descriptive psychology can seem esoteric in its
metaphysics, prescriptive psychology is nothing if not practi-
cal. It does not posit that everything about the conventional
experience is incorrect or that all aspects of the mind are
bound by illusion. Instead, it takes an analytical approach to
each step of interdependent co-arising and each layer of con-
sciousness and finds the appropriate method to de-bias it and
thereby attenuate its negative consequences. The analogy
given within the Buddhist tradition is that of a man who walks
into a dark room and is frightened when he sees a snake. After
turning on the lights, he realizes that the so-called snake was
only a piece of coiled rope. The next time he enters the room,
he will no longer see and fear the snake because it has been
recognized as illusory. Likewise, our psychological distur-
bances and unskillful behaviors stem from misperception of
reality. Upon realizing the nature of reality, and thus attaining
enlightenment, we continue experiencing what is, but the
illusory projections on top of it disappear. The purpose of
prescriptive Buddhist psychology is, therefore, to uproot the
misperception of subject–object duality and thereby enable
perception of reality as it is. This enables an alternative mode
of experience that is rooted in non-referential awareness.
While other approaches to psychology note several aspects
highlighted by descriptive Buddhist psychology, they are less
likely to model the consequences of this knowledge (i.e., how
conventional modes of cognition produce maladaptive behav-
iors). As a result, they are even less likely to identify ways of
training the mind to overcome these limitations. Therefore, we
must also review the prescriptive approach to Buddhist psy-
chology and its implications for both research and practice.
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The Purpose of Mind Training
In Buddhism, mind training practice (Tbt. blo sbyong) is
intended to gradually reduce the reification of cognitive pro-
cesses that produces subject–object duality, thereby leading to
enlightenment. Because enlightenment is the recognition of
non-referential awareness, which is the only thing that inher-
ently exists, Buddhists do not think of enlightenment as pro-
duced or created, just recognized or realized. Enlightenment-
oriented practices can be grouped into three categories: study
(śruta), contemplation (cintā), and meditation (bhāvanā). The
sum total of these practices is to alter each of the eight
consciousnesses (six cognitive, afflictive, and ground) and
thereby mitigate the process of interdependent co-arising that
generates limiting karma. This process is certainly intensive
and produces experiences that differ greatly from convention-
al experiences (see Barendregt 1996). Because the cognitive
changes induced by mind training are so robust and significant
challenges can be encountered along the path, we caution
against regarding it as a mere self-help or positive psychology
intervention. To provide a fuller context, we therefore high-
light mind training’s impact on each of the eight conscious-
nesses in this section. In the next, we address these practices
more specifically and highlight the role each plays in address-
ing interdependent co-arising.
Cognitive Consciousness Buddhism explains that cognitive
consciousness arises due to the perceptual organs inherent in
our bodies. While in meditation, advanced practitioners can
inhibit the arising of cognitive consciousness, which has been
demonstrated for visual, auditory, and tactile consciousness by
Hindu yogis (Anand et al. 1961). However, in everyday
interactions, cognitive consciousness arises for all beings,
enlightened and otherwise. The difference between the two
is the role that cognitive schemas play in this process. For the
typical individual, all experiences are mediated by these
schemas derived from the past. They determine not only the
dimensions by which an object is judged (e.g., width or
direction of the river) but even what groupings of perceptual
data constitute an object (e.g., distinguishing between a river
and the sea into which it flows). However, mind training
reduces the influence of top-down perceptual expectancies
so that experience is not interpreted, just experienced.
Accordingly, an early EEG study on Zen meditators showed
that they do not tend to habituate to stimuli; instead of creating
a cognitive schema of a particular pattern and writing it off,
they were able to experience the stimulus as novel each time it
occurred (Kasamatsu and Hirai 1973).
Buddhist mind training changes not only the five percep-
tual consciousnesses, but also mental consciousness. A hall-
mark of conventional experience is the ongoing nature of
discursive cognition. By this, we refer to mental chatter in
which the mind experiences reality through the use of
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language. Discursive cognition occurs during a wide variety
of activities and leads to unhappiness, even when focused on
pleasant topics (Killingsworth and Gilbert 2011). For one who
has undergone mind training, discursive cognition is not on-
going, does not overlay present-moment experience, and does
not drag the mind into the past or the future. Because all
language is rooted in cognitive schemas and all cognitive
schemas are rooted in the past, inhibiting discursive cognition
during experience opens up new possibilities in the present.
Buddhist meditators are better able to see multiple interpreta-
tions of an object, flexibly switch between uses, and abandon
static assumptions about them, leading to greater creativity
(e.g., Greenberg et al. 2012; Kudesia in press). Further, be-
cause cognitive schemas systematically ignore or downplay
the importance of incompatible information, reducing discur-
sive cognition also allows for experiences to arise that chal-
lenge one’s assumptions and go beyond one’s past experi-
ences. This experience of reality whereby interpretations from
the past are not imposed on experience in the present is called
“beginner’s mind” within Zen Buddhism (Kabat-Zinn 1990,
p. 35). Decreases in mind wandering and discursive cognition
have been observed in just 2 weeks of training and are shown
to lead to better performance on standardized tests (Mrazek
et al. 2013).
Afflictive Consciousness According to tradition, subject–ob-
ject duality stems from ignorance of non-referential aware-
ness. While the ultimate goal is to uproot this false notion of
duality at its source, the process of mind training also deals
with the manifest afflictions caused by this false view. Western
psychology suggests a series of processes rather in line with
steps six through eight of the interdependent co-arising model.
We therefore propose a hybrid Buddhist–Western psycholog-
ical model of conventional stimulus processing (see Fig. 2).
After coming into contact (sparśa) with a stimulus, we expe-
rience primary inducers that relate to the perceptual conscious-
ness and secondary inducers which relate to mental conscious-
ness, our thoughts about the object (Bechara et al. 2003).
Cross-cultural psychology has found that across the world,
the inducers produce a judgment of the stimulus along three
basic factors (Osgood et al. 1975). In order of descending
importance, we judge whether the stimulus is good or bad
(evaluation), strong or weak (potency), and active or passive
(activity). This three-dimensional judgment space induces a
neurophysiological feeling (vedanā) state called core affect,
which is reflected in autonomic nervous system activity
(Barrett 2006). Core affect is described by two dimensions:
how good or bad one feels (valence), which maps on to how
we evaluate a stimulus, and how high or low the feeling’s
intensity is (arousal), which maps on to the stimulus’ potency
and activity. In line with appraisal theories of emotions (e.g.,
Scherer et al. 2001), these feelings, generated in the body
viscera, are then cognitively labeled as an emotion such as
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918 Mindfulness (2015) 6:910–925

Fig. 2 Hybrid model of Stimulus Semantic Emotion Action Behavioral

Processing Interpretation Appraisal Tendency Response
conventional stimulus–response
Alert
behavior
Nervous Approach Tendency
!

Potency
* Happy
Neutral Tendency
Valence

Arousal
Depressed
* Inhibition Tendency
* Calm
Evaluation

1 2 3 4 5

1. Stimulus Processing. The stimulus is processed by perceptual (primary inducer) and mental (secondary
inducer) cognitive consciousnesses, forming an internal mental representation.
2. Semantic Interpretation. This mental representation is interpreted on three dimensions: evaluation (good-
bad), potency (strong-weak), and activity (active-passive).
3. Emotion Appraisal. This semantic interpretation produces a core affective state (valence and arousal),
which is then appraised and labeled using emotional knowledge.
4. Action Tendency. The particular emotion appraisal carries certain action tendencies within it.
5. Behavioral Response. Action tendencies produce a response to the stimulus that, in turn, generates new
mental impressions that reinforce existing interpretations.

fear or happiness based on our cognitive schemas of these
emotions and the events surrounding them. These appraisals
and feelings then carry action tendencies (taṇhā) related to
approaching or avoiding the stimulus (Roseman 1984). When
we act (upādāna) according to these tendencies to magnify
positive feelings, minimize negative feelings, and ignore neu-
tral feelings, we enable becoming (bhāva) by generating new
karmic seeds.
Over the course of mind-training, prescriptive Buddhist
psychology seeks to alter each of these steps. First, these
habitual appraisals of stimuli come when we apply cognitive
schemas derived from the past. Mind training reduces and
eventually eliminates the unconscious use of these schemas
by quelling mental consciousness and its imposition of rigid
judgments as well as reducing filters imposed on perceptual
consciousness. Second, mind training reduces the intensity of
feeling states, which in turn reduces the power of the action
tendencies inherent in them. Research accordingly shows that
when Buddhist meditators hear emotionally laden stimuli like
a baby cooing or woman screaming, they do not activate brain
regions associated with discursive cognition and emotional
responses but instead engage attention and inhibition related
areas (Brefczynski-Lewis et al. 2007). Finally, while descrip-
tive Buddhist psychology acknowledges the afflictive emo-
tions that result from subject–object duality, prescriptive
Buddhist psychology has identified four adaptive appraisals
called the four immeasurables (catvāri apramāṇāni) that re-
duce subject–object duality and inhibit afflictive emotions.
When the stimulus is a life situation or object, instead of
feeling attraction, aversion, or indifference, there are two
appraisals. The first is equanimity (upeksā), receiving loss
˙
and gain, pleasure and pain, etc. with calm and impersonal
receptivity. The second is rejoicing (mudita), an empathetic
feeling of joy rather than resentment in the positive circum-
stances and life situations of others. When the stimulus is
another person, prescriptive Buddhist psychology suggests
two appraisals. The first is compassion (karunā), the feeling
˙
of wanting to reduce the suffering of others. The second is
loving-kindness (maitri), the feeling of wanting to increase
the happiness of others, which improves life satisfaction and
removes afflictive emotions (Fredrickson et al. 2008). As
such, prescriptive Buddhist psychology offers remedies for
both the latent and manifest aspects of afflictive mental states.
Ground Consciousness The most fundamental cognitive pro-
cesses that keep individuals tied to conventional existence
stem from ground consciousness. Mind training seeks to alter
the role of ground consciousness in three ways: first, by
making practitioners more aware of it and its tendencies,
second, by reducing the automatic reliance on cognitive
schemas derived from the past to interpret present moment
experience, and third, by transforming the existing schemas
from unwholesome (akuśala) to wholesome (kuśala). In
regards to the first, the Buddha is said to have taught that
one is mindful “when feelings are known as they arise, known
as they persist, known as they pass away; when thoughts are
known as they arise, known as they persist, known as they
pass away; when perceptions are known they arise, known as
they persist, known as they pass away” (SN V 180). This
increased detached monitoring of mental activity, known as
meta-awareness, helps individuals better recognize their per-
sonality with its strengths and weaknesses and their habitual
ways of seeing the world. This reduces the rigidity of the
schemas because they no longer operate beneath conscious-
ness. As meta-awareness levels increase, it also gives one
insight into the process of how these schemas operate, which
reveals the limitations and flaws inherent in trying to map
current experience onto old viewpoints. It is not necessarily
that mind training makes one aware of where each cognitive
schema comes from and how it impacts life. Instead, mind
training makes one aware of how the entire interpretative
structure of cognitive schemas impacts life. Once one grasps
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Mindfulness (2015) 6:910–925
their tone and motifs, they lose a substantial amount of power.
It is akin to how one does not need to know all used car
salesmen to understand how their process works.
Regarding the second way that mind training impacts
ground consciousness, mind training reduces the frequency
with which the discursive cognition of mental consciousness
and the maladaptive and dualistic emotions of afflictive con-
sciousness are activated. Over time, this limits the automatic
activation of schemas from ground consciousness, which we
have highlighted this throughout the section. Regarding the
third way, prescriptive Buddhist psychology offers various
remedies to transform the nature of the schemas. These in-
clude specific reappraisals like the four immeasurables, par-
ticular vows or codes of conduct to generate new karmic
seeds, and visualizations to overcome maladaptive tendencies
(e.g., to overcome lust, visualize the bones, muscles, and fat
underneath the individual’s skin or visualize the individual
aging from a newborn baby to an elderly person). Because our
cognitive schemas arise from ignorance and subject–object
duality, they inherently endorse certain goal states that solidify
latent afflictions like self-superiority. As one’s utilization of
schemas, belief in subject–object duality, commitment to self-
ish goals, experience of latent afflictions, and action tenden-
cies change as a result of mind training, the underlying karmic
pull of ground consciousness diminishes. The ultimate goal of
mind training is to reduce the further flowering of karma in the
ground consciousness, to transform the nature of current kar-
mic formations in ground consciousness, and to allow one to
penetrate beyond ground consciousness into non-referential
awareness.
Techniques of Mind Training
Study In prescriptive Buddhist psychology, study consists of
hearing the teachings on the nature of reality—especially in
relation to the cognitive structures and processes summarized
here. The tradition espoused in this paper groups the Buddha’s
teachings into three sequential sets, known as the “three
turnings of the wheel.” The first summarizes the problems
inherent in the conventional experience of reality, the second
explains how conventional experience emerges through inter-
dependent co-arising, and the third explains the persistence of
non-referential awareness and enlightened experience after
one overcomes conventional experience. In order for these
teachings to have their intended effect, Buddhism recom-
mends that one avoid the “three defects of the pot” which
include the inverted pot (listening with a closed mind), the
perforated pot (listening without retaining), and the contami-
nated pot (listening with preconceptions).
Contemplation While study refers to unbiased acquisition of
the teaching, contemplation is concerned with utilization of
the teaching. More specifically, it is the process whereby
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practitioners reflect on the teaching first by translating it into
their own terms and then by applying it to their past, present,
and future experience. Practitioners review past experiences in
the light of the teaching, apply it to current events in their
lives, and project them into the near future. This helps over-
come habitual ways of viewing the world and produces flex-
ibility in appraisals of situations. It reminds individuals that
more adaptive means of acting in the world exist and are
specified by the teachings of prescriptive Buddhist psycholo-
gy. One common example of a contemplation (which is often
misidentified as a meditation) is loving-kindness practice in
which individuals cultivate the desire to increase the happi-
ness of others, often starting with close others and expanding
to include all sentient beings. Because they help individuals
reflect upon an aspect of the teaching and integrate it into their
lives, such contemplations serve as a helpful bridge between
theory and practice.
Meditation Instead of reflecting on an aspect of the teaching,
as with contemplation, meditation allows habitual mental
activities to pause, so the truth underlying the teaching can
be directly experienced and assimilated. It is a means to gain
direct insight into and de-automatize the process of interde-
pendent co-arising. As discussed in the earlier section, the
cognitive consciousnesses that produce contact, the interpre-
tations that create feelings and emotions, and the resulting
action tendencies and karma-producing behaviors are all less-
ened in frequency and intensity as a result of meditation. It
helps practitioners de-identify with the processes of con-
sciousness and instead recognize that their true identity is
the non-referential awareness in which these processes are
occurring. With meditation practice, individuals can more
quickly identify and inhibit the process of interdependent co-
arising, which prevents the arising of maladaptive patterns of
thought and behavior. Finally, with recognition of non-
referential awareness, ignorance disappears and thus interde-
pendent co-arising never begins.
The Process of Breath Meditation
The most common form of meditation is called mindfulness of
breath (ānāpānasmrti). As the five traditional mechanisms
˙
underlying breath meditation map onto neuropsychology, we
propose a hybrid Buddhist–Western process model of medi-
tation (see Fig. 3). It begins with determination (saṅkalpa), or
the setting of a hierarchy of goals. In Buddhism, the higher-
order goal is always enlightenment: to reach a direct experi-
ence of reality after which every action spontaneously
emerges for the benefit of all beings. This higher-order goal
can have sub-goals, such as cultivating equanimity in the face
of afflictive emotions or performing a particular meditative
technique, but none of these activities has any true value in
Buddhism unless done in the service of enlightenment. The
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920
Fig. 3 Hybrid model of cognitive mechanisms underlying meditation
determination is stored in working memory, which is associ-
ated with the prefrontal cortex (for reviews of cognitive neu-
roscience see Jha et al. 2007; Malinowski 2013).
Once an individual sets her determination to meditate for
enlightenment, two simultaneous processes occur: restraint
(samyama) and attention (avadhāna). Restraint implies with-
˙
drawing from the distractions of the six cognitive conscious-
nesses. This means detaching from distracting perceptual
input and quieting any ongoing discursive cognition. This
occurs naturally as the result of setting the intention to med-
itate, but can be heightened by techniques. Buddhism teaches
that cognitive consciousness is embodied, and thus recom-
mends three specific techniques using mind, body, and breath.
First is prayer to strengthen the intention and draw mental
activity from the conventional closer to absolute reality (e.g.,
May what I am about to do yield favorable results. May it give
me the capacity to benefit others. May it help me overcome
ignorance and limitation. May it clear away all obstacles on
the path. May it lead me to the union of wisdom and compas-
sion.) Second is the seven-point posture of Vairochana
(saptadharma-vairocana) to align the body in a way that
preemptively minimizes the arising of cognitive conscious-
ness due to distractions from physical sensations (i.e., hips
higher than knees, spine elongated with chin tucked, shoulders
neither hunched forward nor pushed back, arms hanging loose
at the sides, hands in the lap, tip of tongue resting against the
palate, the gaze unfocused and low). Third is calming the
breath, which occurs by breathing softly, smoothly, and deep-
ly, without interruptions, and without favoring the inhalation
or exhalation. This also preemptively reduces the arising of
cognitive consciousness, particularly the mental cognitive
consciousness.
Mindfulness (2015) 6:910–925
Operating alongside this shift away from distractions is
attention, which directs focus according to the goal. In the
mindfulness of breath meditation, one focuses attention on the
tip of the nose and notices the full range of sensations that
occur as breath enters and exits there. In Buddhism, by
narrowing and placing the focused mind on the tip of the
nose, the cognitive consciousnesses are seen as being further
inhibited, allowing attention to stabilize at a single point.
Therefore setting the goal of meditating for enlightenment
helps minimize the arising of much cognitive consciousness
through restraint and attention, instead only allowing those
perceptions related to the incoming and outgoing breath at the
tip of the nose. These forces of restraint and attention are
linked first with orienting attention, which focuses the mind
on goal-relevant stimuli like the breath and operates through
the dorsal attention system, and then with alerting attention,
which keeps the mind in a state of active readiness over time
and operates through the ventral attention system.
Once attention has been placed, recollection (smaraṇa) is
engaged. In recollection, important information for the med-
itation must be actively retained in working memory. This can
include the goal (attaining enlightenment for the benefit of
others), instructions (focusing attention on the breath), and
remedies (how to deal with dullness and agitation). Thus,
while determination refers to initially setting the goal to med-
itate and related knowledge, recollection refers to the active
maintenance of this information over time. Also engaged
alongside recollection is vigilance (apramāda). Vigilance re-
fers to meta-awareness: monitoring of mental activity and
noting if it has deviated from the aforementioned goal or
instructions. This enables application of remedies as necessary
and discontinuation of the remedies when appropriate.
Vigilance is enabled by the monitoring functions of executive
attention, associated with the anterior cingulate cortex. This
function scans for mental activity incongruent with the goals
stored in working memory, and becomes active if a conflict
between the two is noted.
Therefore, if recollection ceases and the goal and related
knowledge are dropped from working memory, so too does
vigilance fail because recollection contains the standard by
which vigilance operates. However, if the two are operating
properly, they are able to remedy the two common challenges
of meditation: dullness and agitation. When the level of atten-
tion begins to fade and one no longer vividly experiences the
breath, this is called dullness and is remedied by recollection
of the instructions, which may include raising the gaze,
checking the alignment of the body, or increasing the depth
of the breath. When cognitive consciousness unrelated to the
breath arises into awareness, this is called agitation and is also
remedied by recollection of the instructions, which may in-
clude lowering the gaze, releasing tension in the body, or
slowing the breath. As long as recollection and vigilance are
maintained, the meditation continues and the meditator
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Mindfulness (2015) 6:910–925
monitors and adjusts her mental activity according to the goal
and instructions. The ability to detach from distractions, some-
times known as decentering, corresponds to the regulatory
function of the executive attention system in the prefrontal
cortex, which receives information from the conflict monitor-
ing system and responds to distractions by gathering addition-
al cognitive resources to apply appropriate remedies.
As such, mindfulness of breath meditation is essentially a
training in the core skills of self-regulation: the ability to set
goals, maintain them in the face of distractions, monitor for
lapses in goal-congruent behavior, and regulate these lapses
by applying remedies.
Stages of Progress in Meditation
Mindfulness Meditation progresses in three stages: mindful-
ness, calm abiding, and insight. When used in this particular
context, the first stage, mindfulness (smṛti), means “remem-
bering” the meditation instruction. After the novice has set her
determination to meditate, either attention will diminish and
she falls asleep or restraint will diminish and unrelated
thoughts enter and agitate the mind. When one engages the
recollection facet of meditation and becomes aware that she
has forgotten to notice the breath as per the instruction, she has
become mindful. In Western psychology, this awareness of
consciousness is called meta-awareness and is commonly
described as flashing on at occasional intervals (Schooler
et al. 2011). The more mindful an individual, the more stable
her ability to keep goals salient and the earlier on in the
process of interdependent co-arising that she notes arising
automatic tendencies. Instead of letting the mind run off with
distracting thoughts and feelings, the mindful individual is
able to maintain attention on the breath in accordance with
her intention. The mindful individual also has more stable
meta-awareness, such that she is more aware of arising mental
phenomena. As a result, she gains access to more subtle
mental phenomena in which the subject–object duality is less
distinct.
Calm Abiding Individuals who can reliably and in real time
note the arising of cognitive consciousness and the resulting
feelings and action tendencies have entered the second stage
of meditation, which is calm-abiding (śamathā). In calm-abid-
ing, the stream of interdependent co-arising is observed more
directly. Instead of simply catching single points in the pro-
cess, meta-awareness is stable and thus the unfolding of the
process can be noted. One feels the physical sensation of an
arising feeling and can watch as it grows, develops, and
eventually wanes. The ability to abide in all interdependently
co-arisen mental phenomena without integrating awareness
with it is the role of this stage. It is no longer that “I feel
anxiety and aversion in response to this anxiety” but simply
that “a feeling of anxiety and resulting aversion arose in
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awareness.” The continuity of meta-awareness makes this
kind of observation possible. One does not feel anxiety, one
notices the feeling of anxiety, which is not ontologically tied
to any sense of self. And, further, because these interdepen-
dently co-arisen phenomena are arising of their own accord
and are seen without the illusion of a self causing them or
participating in them, these processes are weakened and hold
less karmic conditioning ability. This means, for example, that
meditators reaching this stage have greater flexibility in
choosing how to respond to situations because their automatic,
habitual, and prepotent responses are inhibited.
Insight When the ability to calmly abide becomes stable, one
reaches the third stage of meditation, which is insight
(vipaśyanā). By repeatedly stabilizing meta-awareness and
noticing how dualistic cognitive consciousness arises as the
result of causes and dissipates in due time, the meditator
realizes the nature of interdependent co-arising. Thoughts
are just thoughts; all conventional subjective experiences,
from the strongest emotion to the faintest memory, are simply
byproducts of an ongoing process. When mind training has
advanced to this degree, the meditator begins to directly
experience the nature of non-referential awareness. By this
point, the sense of subject and object is greatly diminished as
is the intensity of arising phenomena. Further, because phe-
nomena are noticed as they arise and seen in the light of
interdependent co-arising, they do not progress beyond weak
feelings to cravings or action tendencies. The meditator is
situated in the non-referential nature of awareness and notices
how when contact arises, non-dual awareness is apparently
fragmented into subject and object and how this dualistic
consciousness only persists as long as these precipitating
causes persist. As insight becomes increasingly stable with
time and practice, eventually within meditation one abides
strictly in non-referential awareness without any arising dual-
istic phenomena. Even outside of meditation, when cognitive
consciousness occurs, it does not build upon and grow the
ground consciousness. Instead, one approaches each moment
with the clarity of non-dual awareness and mindful remem-
brance that these dependent phenomena only occur as the
result of one’s biological machinery and past experiences.
Tradition describes this state as enlightenment, the purpose
of Buddhist mind training.
Five Facets of Enlightened Awareness
Without an understanding of both descriptive and prescriptive
Buddhist psychology, the concept of enlightenment can seem
rather fantastical. However, we hope that by clarifying the
theoretical context in which enlightenment occurs, we can
ground the concept in a more practical and attainable sense.
To further provide a sense of the subjective experience of an
enlightened being, Buddhism refers to five wisdoms (pañca-
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922 Mindfulness (2015) 6:910–925

jñāna). As interdependent co-arising is the model that explains there is no real distinction between self and other. It is not that
the process by which conventional consciousness perceives this intention is considered and adopted by enlightened be-
and engages with the world, the five wisdoms explicate how ings, but that it intuitively and spontaneously emerges upon
non-referential awareness perceives and engages with it. enlightenment. In light of the earlier analogy, once a person
However, while interdependent co-arising is a causative un-sees the snake projected on the rope, it is inevitable that
process that occurs in time as propelled by karma, the five they help others un-see the snake as well. Thus, it is within the
wisdoms are all engaged simultaneously without any sub- nature of enlightened beings to act in this way.
jective sense of self that experiences the passing of time,
takes ownership of karma, or receives the fruits of karma. In
this way, while in the absolute sense only non-referential
awareness exists, individuals who have realized this truth
Defining Mindfulness in Context
while still embodied are in a unique position: they are the
absolutely existing non-referential awareness abiding in a
Mindfulness has been used in a variety of ways within
relatively existing dependent world. As a result of this
Buddhism: as the cognitive skill underlying recollection of
position, an enlightened being (buddha) has a unique sub-
the instruction during meditation, the first stage of meditation
jective experience.
in which meta-awareness is being developed, and the dispo-
The first facet of enlightened awareness is “wisdom of the
sitional tendency to remember certain points that help guide
realm underlying all phenomena” (dharmadhātu-jñāna). It
everyday life. While the instruction for meditation hinges on
describes the constant ongoing experience of the non-dual
remembering to focus on the breath, this is not enough for
awareness in which all experience occurs. Grounded in this
everyday living. In fact, the Buddha was extremely specific in
awareness, the enlightened being never falls under the illusion
enumerating ten points of which one must remain mindful.
of subject–object duality and the process of interdependent co-
According to tradition, this includes remembering non-
arising it entails. The second facet of enlightened awareness is
referential awareness, the teaching, and the community of
“mirror-like wisdom” (ādarśa-jñāna). It describes how enlight-
practitioners; remembering the conduct to pursue, the attitude
ened awareness mentally represents reality as it is without
of generosity, the precepts to follow, and the importance of
additions, subtractions, or modifications caused by dualistic
stopping to meditate; remembering to notice emotions in the
and referential consciousness, especially cognitive schemas.
breath, the pain and limitations of the body, and death, the
Enlightened awareness is like an unstained mirror that per-
ultimate impermanence of conventional reality (AN I 287–
fectly reflects all that it encounters; there is no illusion and
296; Huai-Chin 1993). Dispositional mindfulness thus, from a
thus no arising of cognitive schemas. The third facet is
Buddhist perspective, is about remembering one’s true pur-
“wisdom of equality” (śamatā-jñāna), which describes the
pose in life and using this purpose to decide how to act. It is
calm-abiding ability of enlightened beings. All that the mirror
less about paying attention to everything occurring in the
of awareness reflects is received and felt as being in reality
present moment and more about carrying forth one’s
equal because it is merely a reflection. There is no personal
intentions into everything one is doing in the present moment.
involvement and resultant attraction, aversion, or indifference
It has cognitive components and is trained especially in the
to experience.
early stages of meditation, but fundamentally involves active-
The fourt h facet is “wisdom of discernm ent”
ly carrying forth the intention of attaining enlightenment as a
(pratyaveksanā-jñāna). It refers to the fact that while all ex-
˙ means of guiding and regulating behavior.
perience is treated as equal, an enlightened being can always
discern between the absolutely existing non-dual reality and
the dependently existing relative reality, and is also capable of Limitations of Current Definitions
making necessary distinctions within conventional reality. It
is not that enlightened beings are incapable of understanding In line with the theme of this paper, our goal is to offer a
what a river is, simply that they can choose to see the river definition of mindfulness that builds from a variety of disci-
while others are compelled to see it. The fifth facet of enlight- plines (e.g., Buddhism, neuroscience, psychology). We sug-
ened awareness is “wisdom that accomplishes all” gest that such a definition should cover the five traditional
(krty-ānusthāna-jñāna). Because they are situated in non- Buddhist cognitive skills needed for breath meditation, which
˙ ˙˙
referential awareness, enlightened beings act spontaneously is the core of most mindfulness programs (e.g., Bishop et al.
and effortlessly in every situation, without any cognitive 2004) as well as the Western neuropsychological mechanisms.
planning or mental activity, to benefit those with whom they Some common definitions (e.g., “bringing one’s complete
interact. Acting to benefit others is as intuitive to enlightened attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment
beings as pulling one’s hand away from a flame is for a typical basis”; Marlatt and Kristeller 1999, p. 68) see mindfulness as
individual. Because they exist in the realm of non-duality, unidimensional and related to attention. As a result, they
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Mindfulness (2015) 6:910–925
ignore the importance of goals and the meta-cognitive com-
ponents such decentering from thoughts.
Other definitions are broader, but incorporate exogenous
elements. For example, Baer et al. (2006) incorporate the
dialectical behavioral therapy technique of verbalizing mental
phenomena as the “describe” facet of mindfulness (Grossman
2008). This results in assessments that regard the tendency to
utilize mental language as part of mindfulness, when it is
actually merely a practice utilized by a particular
mindfulness-based training (Baer et al. 2006). Buddhist psy-
chology explicitly focuses on not habitually overlaying expe-
rience with words. This is done to minimize the proliferation
of mental consciousness (prapañca) and disaggregate the de-
pendently co-arisen labels attached to stimuli. A variety of
other measures also include factors such as non-judgment of
internal experience, self-acceptance, and non-avoidance of
experiences (see Bergomi et al. 2012). While consistent with
mindfulness, these proposed facets are problematic. Construct
validity requires that we define mindfulness by what it is, not
by what it does. Because mindfulness increases meta-
awareness to observe internal phenomena from a detached
perspective, it helps individuals become dispositionally less
judgmental of inner experiences, more accepting of them-
selves, and less avoidant of experiences. These proposed
facets are thus consequences of mindfulness, not mindfulness
itself. Therefore, current definitions are often either too limit-
ed, too expansive, or theoretically imprecise.
An Integrated Definition of Mindfulness
Keeping in mind the Buddhist and Western cognitive compo-
nents, the need for a multi-dimensional but not over-inclusive
conceptualization, and an emphasis on what mindfulness is
and not what it does, we offer the following definition: mind-
fulness is a state of heightened meta-awareness in which
discursive cognition is diminished and attention is solely
focused on and receptive to goal-relevant aspects of the pres-
ent moment. This definition covers both the Buddhist and
Western cognitive components without imposing exogenous
attributes and focuses on the construct of mindfulness instead
of its consequences. It additionally provides discriminant va-
lidity by distancing mindfulness from similar concepts. For
example, absorption (Schaufeli et al. 2002) and flow
(Csíkszentmihályi 1996) represent complete engrossment in
activity. By including meta-awareness, we distinguish mind-
fulness from these constructs. In mindfulness one is not lost in
activity, but monitors it from a greater psychological distance
(e.g., Teasdale et al. 2002). This is akin to the experience of a
star musician or athlete who can watch herself perform from
an objective and detached perspective.
Similarly, by incorporating the role of goals, we can pre-
vent the conflation of mindfulness and open-monitoring. In
mindfulness, one only attends to goal-relevant aspects of the
923
present moment, not all arising stimuli in the present moment.
If one’s goal is to read mindfully, that means excluding back-
ground noise from attention and focusing on the reading, not
paying attention to all stimuli. In fact, dispositionally paying
attention to goal-irrelevant stimuli is associated with severe
negative mental health outcomes (Lubow et al. 1992). As
suggested by other researchers (e.g., Jha et al. 2010), goals
(or intentions to use a more Buddhist term) are central to the
Sanskrit term and are demonstrated to be important driver of
mindfulness meditation’s benefits. The ability to detach from
distractions, which is central to mindfulness (Feldman et al.
2010), also requires goals because a distraction only exists in
relation to a goal. In line with dominant theories of self-
regulation (e.g., Carver and Scheier 2001), we also note that
goals are often arranged in a hierarchy with lower-order goals
working to facilitate higher-order goals. For mindfulness to
make sense from a Buddhist perspective, the overriding
higher-order goal guiding behavior must be to attain enlight-
enment for the benefit of all sentient beings.
Finally, while mind wandering is an opposing construct to
mindfulness (Mrazek et al. 2012), many definitions do not
include the facet of diminished discursive cognition. Because
linguistic thought is inherently tied to cognitive schemas in
Buddhist psychology, the fact that subjective experience is
direct and not mediated by language is extremely important in
seeing things as they are, as opposed to seeing things as we
are. Decreasing the use of language thus is necessary for
removing the rigid judgments, which is to the beginner’s mind
approach to experience that mindfulness trains (Hayes and
Wilson 2003). The switch away from processing experience
through language is also an important driver of mindfulness
training in clinical settings (e.g., Goldin et al. 2009).
In summary, mindfulness has three components: height-
ened meta-awareness, decreased discursive cognition, and
goal-based attention regulation. The benefits of this contextu-
alized definition of mindfulness are fivefold: (1) it more fully
represents the construct’s Buddhist roots, (2) it describes
mindfulness in terms amenable to cognitive neuropsychology,
(3) it sufficiently differentiates mindfulness from related con-
structs, (4) it avoids imposition of exogenous factors related to
particular trainings, and (5) it describes the construct rather
than its consequences. As a result, we feel that the definition of
mindfulness produced by this integration of Buddhist and
Western approaches to cognition can facilitate conceptual
clarity in the literature.
Conclusion
One of the most fascinating and promising features of the
mindfulness literature is the way it brings together scholars of
various disciplines: neuroscience, cognitive, clinical, and
 Author's personal copy
924
personality psychology, theology, management, history, and
many others. This chorus of voices will indeed produce richer
harmonies, especially as we continue to integrate them. Our
key goal in writing this review paper was to help in this
process of integration. We feel that the barriers between aca-
demic disciplines and culturally determined worldviews are
neither easily overcome nor fundamentally insurmountable.
We have seen how work that bridges these gaps grows both
sides; for example, work with Buddhist lamas helped chal-
lenge assumptions in Western medicine about volitional con-
trol over autonomic nervous system activities and provided
increased validation of and interest in tantric practices like
candālī yoga (Benson 1982). Similarly, the great Tibetan
master Dölpopa Sherab Gyaltsen remarked that the
Buddha’s teaching must be presented anew in suitable termi-
nology (Tbt. chos skad) when confusion arises or significant
changes in place, time, and circumstance take place (Stearns
2010). Our hope is that as researchers continue to develop
upon Buddhist psychological concepts, this paper can help in
some way to reduce confusion and assist in the further devel-
opment of these important ideas in the new place, time, and
circumstance of empirical research.
Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Stephen Saunders,
David Shapley, Ram Mahalingam, Ellen Choi, Lindsey Cameron, and
two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback.
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