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sal goodwill; emptiness; and so on.
This is contemplative thought. It has every right to be
regarded as “meditation,” although it bears little resemblance
to what I’ve described in this book. There is no focus on the
body, emotions, states of mind, or present-moment experi-
ence. Religious contemplations typically expect you to over-
come your natural doubts and argue your way toward final,
fixed answers and beliefs.
Contemplative thought can work well, however, if we
choose our own subjects and are encouraged to find our own
answers. We find this practice throughout Western philos-
ophy. Well-bred Greek or Roman students would reflect on
and discuss certain universal subjects at depth for years at a
time. Classical themes included the nature of the good life;
old age, sickness, and death; the inevitability of loss and the
fickleness of fortune; the nature of the cosmos and our place
in it; controlling the passions; the qualities of a good citizen;
the relative values of fame, wealth, sensual enjoyment, and
power; and so on.
There is no correct, final answer to these questions, but
reflecting upon them is invaluable for shaping character and
in helping us find our way through the particular world and
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society we happen to be in. Nor does this kind of contemplation require faith in authorities. It is the classical Greco-
Roman path of spiritual development through open-ended
inquiry. And although contemplation is a kind of deep, feel-
ing thought, it is still fundamentally rational, and it actually
thrives on argument.
INTUITIVE THOUGHT
Intuitive thought is the dominant house style of Zen, and it
is not rational at all. It is certainly a kind of thought, but it
takes pride in being obtuse, confrontational, and immune to
argument. Buddhism, like Christianity, has a huge tradition of
exegesis and commentary by scholar monks. Zen, however, is
a late reform movement. It defines itself as being “a teaching
outside the scriptures,” and its past masters habitually ridi-
culed the study and learning developed in rival schools.
The Zen theory of mind is nonetheless simple and intu-
itive. We are all enlightened but we don’t yet know it. We
all have a pure buddhamind within us. This is our “original
face.” By sitting very still and not thinking for a long enough
time, the tangle of our thoughts and conditioning will gradu-
ally disintegrate, and the mirrorlike buddhamind will shine
forth. By sitting in zazen, perfectly balanced, focused, and
alert, we literally become the Buddha. In a flash, when the
circumstances are right, “body and mind drop away,” and we
finally recognize that we are already enlightened.
Zen is still a kind of thinking, but it has a very simple form.
The practitioner “holds in mind” an idea without actively
thinking about it. That idea is “emptiness” or “non-self” or
“buddhamind,” or one of its other expressions. It becomes
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the framework around which the practitioner’s nonthinking revolves, and the reference point for whatever experiences
arise in zazen. It still requires faith in the idea of enlightenment and in the efficacy of the practice. The Zen master Hakuun
Yasutani says, “To do shikantaza one must have a firm faith in
the fact that all beings are fundamentally buddhas. . . . If one’s
faith in that fact is shaky, one’s shikantaza is also shaky.”9
I came across essentially the same technique and doctrine
when I was exploring Tibetan Buddhism. It was framed like
this: The body is corrupt and subject to death, but the mind
is always pure and deathless. The mind is the immortal dia-
mond in the mortal lotus (living matter). This is a classical
Indian concept: The individual soul (atman) is identical to
the world soul (Brahman). Freedom comes by liberating mind
from matter, by achieving non-self and emptiness ( sunyata).
In the Tibetan practice of Dzogchen (Sanskrit: Maha-
mudra), every kind of striving is seen as counterproductive.
It is argued that you can’t possibly achieve awakening if you
anxiously hanker after it. Nonetheless, you still vigilantly
protect yourself against thoughts until their insubstantiality
becomes nakedly obvious. By systematically killing off your
engagement with thought and action, and by doing literally
nothing for as long as possible, your natural, strong, empty,
luminous, incorruptible, primordial, eternal, timeless,
clear-seeing, all-pervading, wish-fulfilling original mind will
eventually emerge.
By meditating we seek our own buddhamind ( bodhicitta),
which is identical with the Buddha’s. By seeking our own
truth, we approach Ultimate Truth. When young, I found
this very encouraging, even if I didn’t quite believe it. It gave
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tremendous sanction to intuition, and obviated any need for study, knowledge, or even much life experience.
This appealed to my somewhat lazy and reclusive temper-
ament. It implied that I could understand the essence of Bud-
dhism and the universe by navel-gazing alone. If I stayed on
retreat for long enough, I would bring forth the bodhicitta,
know everything that was worth knowing, and also become
an instant authority on Buddhism itself. Unfortunately, the
more I meditated and saw how my mind actually worked, the
more childish and faith based this idea seemed to me.
EMBODIED THOUGHT
Although contemplation and intuitive thought are genuine
meditation practices, both are remote from what the Buddha
originally taught. The Tibetan contemplations seek to incul-
cate beliefs such as karma and reincarnation, and Zen tends
to valorize buddhamind or a state of transcendent emptiness.
Neither give any serious attention to body sensations, emo-
tions, states of mind, or present-moment experience as recom-
mended in the Satipatthana Sutta, except to dismiss them as
secondary to mind itself.
A term from cognitive philosophy is useful in order to
explain the Buddha’s approach: “embodied cognition,” or
embodied thought. It indicates a way of thinking “through”
the body, or thinking while remaining fully aware of present-
moment body sensations. The cognitive process operates as
it usually does, but the process is heavily influenced by input
from the body.
The Buddha described how to integrate this active, inves-
tigative thought into a standard meditation in a text we
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mentioned in chapter 3 ca
lled Mindfulness of the Breath.10 In this text, he explains how a monk can contemplate “impermanence” ( anicca) while still focusing on the breath. We can
regard “impermanence” as a placeholder for any worthwhile
thought.
Mindfulness of the Breath asks the monk to silently say,
“in . . . out . . .” repeatedly as he breathes. Done conscien-
tiously, this simple repetition keeps him on track, enhances
focus, and protects him from mental wandering. To make
this a contemplation, the monk simply adds an extra word:
“Contemplating impermanence, I breathe in. Contemplating
impermanence, I breathe out.” In practice, he would strip this
down to “Anicca in, anicca out.” In this way, the monk could split his attention more or less equally between body awareness and thinking.
He wouldn’t need to flick his attention from one to the
other. He can attend to both at once with a fifty-fifty split. He
would be monitoring the ever-changing, real-time, proprio-
ceptive, and visceral sensations of his body while simulta-
neously speculating about impermanence. Despite the huge
difference between these two objects of focus, a trained mind
can handle this quite easily. Body awareness and directed
thought can fit together surprisingly well, and I’m sure neu-
roscientists have some explanation for this.
In practice, meditators more frequently contemplate what
is most important at that moment in their lives, rather than
elements of Buddhist dogma. Experienced meditators often
do a considerable amount of productive thinking when they
practice, whether they admit it or not. No one goes on a ten-
day retreat just to feel peaceful.
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In another text mentioned in chapter 3, Mindfulness of the Body, the Buddha gives a metaphor to describe this kind of
embodied thought.11 He says that the mind is like a chariot
harnessed to thoroughbred horses at the crossroads, and the
monk is the skilled charioteer. He can drive out and back by
any road whenever he likes.
This implies that the monk can follow any train of thought
(or “road”) safely because he knows how to steer his attention
(the “horses”). He knows when to let his horses run (goal-
directed thought), when to bring them to a halt (stop a
thought), and when to change direction (switch to another
thought). He can return to body-mind stillness and mental
silence (the crossroads) whenever he wants to. These are met-
aphors for the kind of expert attentional control that we will
discuss in the next chapter.
Embodied thought has some huge advantages over nor-
mal thought. To control the tendency of thought to run riot,
we need a place to escape from thought. This sanctuary is the
body, or the sensory present (or both). Being grounded in the
body enables us to readily slow down or stop or abandon any
thought.
Embodied thought means that we can also “hold a thought
in mind” without actively processing it. When we do this, we
will find that lateral associations and insights are more likely
to spontaneously appear. The brain naturally recruits mem-
ories associated with any object we focus on. By holding the
thought still, we can see it in a broader context than if we were
just driving it forward.
Being grounded in the body also makes us more conscious
of the valence and emotion of any thought. (Remember that
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emotions appear first in the body and are only later recognized by the mind.) The valence tells us how important a
thought seems to be. The emotion gives us the reasons why.
Being more conscious of our actual state of mind can also
tell us when we are deceiving ourselves. We can recognize
from simple body signals when we are playing out a fantasy
or denying a reality, hoping for a quick fix, or trying to boost
our ego. It can also tell us when we are simply too anxious,
scattered, dull, or obsessed to deal with the matter at all at
that time.
Embodied thought is also excellent for catching those
bright ideas that are called “insights” in Buddhism. Because
we are calmer when we meditate, we are more able to extract
an especially useful thought from the background noise. We
can prevent an insight from being overrun by relentless inner
chatter. When we think, we can deliberately catch, hold, elab-
orate on, and remember the genuine insights that arise.
SHALL I BECOME A MONK?
Let me give you an example of how this all works. When I was
on retreat, I had to deal with several issues that had no obvi-
ous solution. What shall I do with my life? Shall I stay with my
girlfriend? Shall I return to my home in the country? Shall I
become a monk? By thinking through the body, I was able to
process these very thoroughly, without getting caught in the
runaround of useless overthinking. I could actually meditate
on them.
I did so by breaking each issue down into its component
parts and looking at each from the perspective of thought
+ valence + emotion + state of mind + body sensations. I
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isolated and nonverbally evaluated each aspect of the issue, as much as I could, while staying grounded in my body. This
is what kept me calm and grounded and enabled me to con-
sciously direct my thoughts.
So I would think, “Shall I become a monk?” and consider
in compact form the thoughts relating to that. Then I would
notice the valence: How strong or weak, positive or negative,
was this option? In other words, how important did it seem to
be? I would then notice the emotion, or cluster of emotions,
behind it. Why did this issue seem important?
It was like laying out all the ingredients of that issue in
front on me on a table. Thought + valence + emotion + state
of mind + body sensations: The separation was critical. I was
aiming to get a clear and distinct image of each one without
trying to prematurely force them to a conclusion. Through-
out all this, I would still be monitoring the real-time body
sensations and my state of mind.
The next day, I would do it again: thought + valence +
emotion + state of mind + body sensations. The thoughts
about becoming a monk frequently remained the same.
Thoughts often have this unconvincing, cracked-record qual-
ity, but the associated valence would almost certainly have
changed. The prospect would seem more or less attractive
than the day before. Similarly, the dominant emotion might
have changed, or if it hadn’t, different secondary emotions
may have emerged.
On the retreat, I discovered something quite remarkable.
The issue would always look dif
ferent at different times of
day. The morning thoughts were commonly enthusiastic and
positive. The afternoon thoughts were more cautious and
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considered. The midnight thoughts often had a sublime confidence that rarely survived into the morning. So which was
the correct answer?
Over the weeks, the process of sati-sampajjana, the con-
scious perception and evaluation of things, really showed its
strength. Each time I was able to hold and assess an individual
thought, valence, emotion, state of mind, or associated body
sensation, it became fractionally clearer. When I let it go, I was
then sending better quality information into the black box of
the mind. Much of the processing was happening in sleep, so
the next time I reviewed that issue, the different ingredients
would have become more congruent and harmonized.
It was like counting up the votes. At a certain point, it
became crystal clear what the electorate wanted. I can still
remember the actual time (late morning) and the place (about
two hundred yards from my hut) when I knew for certain
that I would never, never, never become a monk. That ques-
tion dropped off the mental list and has never reappeared
since, even for a moment. Embodied thought combines the
advantages of both contemplation and intuition while being
anchored in the present-moment reality of the body. When
we come to a conclusion, we will have a certainty about it—an
insight—that doesn’t come from reason, prejudice, passion, or
the clever mind alone.
The Buddha said that this is the masterly quality of cog-
nition we should be aiming for. He said that we achieve
enlightenment only through deep insight into the nature of
existence, as he understood it, but this is where we tend to part
company with the Buddha. The Buddhist path starts with the
renunciation of all sensory pleasures and the extinguishing
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of all emotion, and few Westerners are prepared to entertain that.
Nonetheless, it is easy to extricate the Buddha’s mind-
training methods from his goals. We can use those meth-
ods for any purpose that we choose. The Buddha’s methods
are sophisticated and elegant. They are based on constant