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about ten to twenty seconds.
At a certain point, we manage to lock on to the new object.
We make contact with it and we know it. We hold it firmly in
our grasp. We establish it as the prima donna on the mental
stage. It is now in the foreground, in the spotlight. We zoom
in on it. These are all metaphors that cognitive psychology
uses to illustrate this state of good focus.
The act of focusing commonly has a binocular, staring-
straight-ahead feeling that comes from the region above the
eyes (the orbitofrontal cortex). Focusing induces the calm,
single-minded, subject-object gaze of a predator. We “grasp”
the object or “take possession of it,” as William James said, in
a way that is distinctly physical. As the Buddha suggests, we
“hold the breath in front of us.” We don’t want the object to
escape because we get distracted.
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Even when we do “make contact” with an object, we can
still readily lose it. The next stage is to “sustain contact” over
time. This is why meditators commonly count their breaths.
They can tell when they are getting lost because they lose the
count. Or they scan through the body, using it like a roadmap
to resist going off on sidetracks.
Deep sustained focus results in an acute perception of
detail. We feel each ripple of the out-breath, and the space
before the new in-breath starts seems to last forever. If we lis-
ten to music, we catch the exact beginning and end of a phrase
and feel each nuance of the orchestral color. If we examine an
idea, we feel its full resonance within our bodies and minds.
If we are paying attention to an action, we move with the
optimal levels of muscle tone, arousal, and coordination.
In sports this equilibrium is called a state of “dynamic bal-
ance” (as discussed in chapter 8), and many athletes report
that everything moves in slow motion when they are “in the
zone.” Sustained attention takes time to establish, but it can
exponentially improve the quality of anything we do.
SWITCHING AND SPLITTING ATTENTION
At any moment in our brains, dozens of thoughts will be com-
peting for their time under the spotlight: The Nobel laureate
Gerald Edelman called the phenomenon of selecting from
among thoughts at the cellular level “neural Darwinism.”
This competition is particularly true with our normal, undis-
ciplined, bottom-up style of attention. Philosophers from the
time of Ecclesiastes onward have lamented that there is no
end to the weariness of thought. So many actors! Such a small
stage!
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Maintaining focus on any one object of attention is hard enough, but being able to let go of an object and switch to
something else—dis-focusing and re-focusing—is just as
important. We rarely find this easy to do. It can be most
unpleasant to get interrupted when we’re fully engaged in
something, and our resistance to switching can be visceral.
Nonetheless, being able to smoothly switch our attention as
required is a critical cognitive skill. If we can’t do it, we get
caught in the painful habit of useless, exhausting overthink-
ing. Most of us suffer from this at least occasionally, and some
have their lives devastated by it.
Even more subtle than switching attention is “splitting”
attention. In general when we focus, we try to give all our free
attention to just one thing. This is so hard to do that we are
pleased when we seem to achieve it. In reality, our attention
is always split whether we realize it or not. Attention always
involves both “focusing” and “monitoring.” Our cognitive
resources are always divided between what is onstage and
what is in the wings, between the object in the foreground and
the peripheral mental activity in the background, between
conscious thought and automatic thought.
Researchers have shown that even with strong mental
focus there is still some processing of what they call the “unat-
tended data.” This is how it should be. Complete tunnel vision
would be disastrous. If we were meditating well, for example,
we wouldn’t notice the house burning down around us. It is
usually best to do one thing at a time as much as possible.
It allows for a detailed, unobstructed representation in the
mind, leading to a clear evaluation and response. However,
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to hold two things simultaneously in the mind is occasionally better than a strong single focus.
For example, we usually make either-or choices sequen-
tially. We do a virtual simulation of option 1. Then we stop and
do a virtual simulation of option 2. We then toggle between
them until one option finally claims us. This approach has its
shortcomings. If at all possible, it is sometimes better to hold
two options side by side on the mental stage and feel the ten-
sion between their respective values.
SHARP FOCUS AND SOFT FOCUS
Recognizing the quality of our focus is an essential part of what
the Buddha calls “being mindful of our state of mind.” The qual-
ity of our attention can vary enormously from second to second,
day to day, and from activity to activity. It can be deep or shallow,
sustained or intermittent, clear or dull, strained or effortless.
It often fluctuates according to events within our bodies and
the environment that we can be quite unaware of. Even when
we focus well, our attention still tends to fluctuate on a bright-
dim continuum. I suspect this is due to the subtle oscillation in
energy supply between the focusing and monitoring functions.
I’m sure that scientists will eventually be able to measure this.
Whenever we meditate, we could be more or less alert, or
more or less relaxed. We may notice the object in detail and
know exactly what is happening in the moment: This is sharp
focus. Or we may be gliding along with minimal effort: This
is soft focus. So long as we remain on track, doing what we
intended to do, both extremes are perfectly fine, and each has
its own benefits.
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Alertness gives us sharp focus and often a sense of mental pleasure and control. The longer we focus, the more resources
and memories we bring to that object, and the more the
peripheral interference fades. We often feel a dopamine-rich
sense of engagement and intimacy with it. At that time, every-
thing else is temporarily “de-selected.”
Strong sustained focus is like a telephoto or zoom lens. It
can be as sharp as a diamond, as penetrating as a microscope.
It can spli
t time into leisurely, radiant nanoseconds. Its emo-
tional tone is one of reward-driven enthusiasm. Strong focus
is essential for the states of bliss that meditators occasionally
experience. It is also perfect for listening to music or enjoying
any sensory pleasure.
Of course strong focus is not always good. It can easily get
too close to the action and lose the bigger picture, resulting
in obsession. Strong focus is a hallmark of compulsive, repet-
itive behavior and addictions, and a single-minded fixation
on the bad is typical of depression. Even strong focus on what
is good can destabilize other aspects of our minds and lives.
Soft focus, on the other hand, usually means that we are
staying focused on the body or the breath but only just. This
sleepy, dark, inward-looking, and almost unconscious state is
very restful if we can remain in control. It allows the homeo-
static processes of the body to restore balance in much the
same way that sleep does. The low-frequency theta brain-
waves and fragmentary dream images that occur in stage 1
sleep are often present in this threshold state.
Soft focus is more like a wide-angle lens. It is more broadly
inclusive than sharp focus, but definition is fuzzy. It can be
good at peripheral monitoring, “watching with detachment,”
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and indeed it may do little else. Its emotional tone is one of relaxation and contentment. Mindfulness as “nonjudgmental
acceptance” is squarely in the soft-focus camp.
It is a different matter if our focus gets even looser. This
often results in a state of mind that is drowsy, rambling,
uncontrolled, vulnerable to any troublesome thought, and
somewhat depressed. We may still be physically relaxed, but
if we’re not tired enough to fall asleep, it is a kind of pointless,
low-level chaos. It lacks the sense of direction and value that
is essential for a good mood.
We can’t entirely control our level of alertness, but we
can turn it up or down to some degree. The Buddha used the
metaphor of tuning a lyre. The music sounds best when the
strings are neither too tight nor too loose. This means that we
should recognize when our attention is too brittle and edgy
and deliberately soften it. More commonly, we should recog-
nize when we are becoming too vague and dreamy, and wake
ourselves up.
Throughout this chapter, my descriptions betray the prej-
udices of the English language. It is very hard to avoid the
assumption that conscious is better than automatic; that
“selective attention” implies a free, autonomous choice; that
focusing is intellectually noble; that strong focus is better
than soft focus; and that the peripheral data is bad, nothing
but a source of distractions and temptations.
In fact, the brain is not designed to work in full sunlight
alone. The mental processes that happen in the shadows are
equally important. The fully conscious mind is a pinnacle of
evolution, but it still relies on our rich substrata of automatic
and unconscious behaviors to function well.
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Many researchers recognize that the benefits of mindful-
ness are largely due to attentional training. It is unfortunate
that few people who actually teach meditation take this seri-
ously. Relaxation and emotional detachment always seem to
be more important and immediate goals than mental control.
Even when paying attention is encouraged, the emphasis on
being “nonjudgmental” at the same time severely undercuts
the evaluative and regulatory function of attention. “Paying
attention” is often reduced to little more than the instruc-
tions “When your mind wanders, return to the breath.” This
is quite inadequate if we want to actually train our attention,
as the Buddha recommended.
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22
Good Judgment
Mindfulness is often described as a nonreactive, passive,
just-watching state of “bare attention” that enables us
to see things “just as they are” without verbal elaboration or
associations from memory. This attitude also tends to assume
that nonaction (what Taoists call wu-wei) and not-thinking
are superior to any kind of deliberate action or thought, and
it adopts an ethically neutral stance toward whatever happens
(nonjudgmental acceptance). This approach is embodied in
the Buddhist slogan “Nothing is worth clinging to”—or in more
modern language, “Nothing is worth reacting to.” (Shake-
speare satirized this idea in Hamlet: “Nothing is either good
or bad, but thinking makes it so.”) While this attitude certainly
supports the meditative ideal of stillness and inner peace, it
was not how the Buddha understood mindfulness.
The term sampajjana means “good judgment” or “eval-
uation.” Sati is so closely linked to sampajjana in the Sutta that they are frequently combined into the phrase sati-sampajjana. Even when sati is used on its own, sampajjana Brain-Training-with-Buddha_3P.indd 261
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is always implied. Sampajjana literally means the “accurate understanding” or “clear comprehension” of something.
According to Analayo, sampajjana “can range from basic
forms of knowing to deep discriminative understanding.”1
Above all, sati-sampajjana is not at all ethically neutral.
Because the Sutta is intended as a practical, self-guided man-
ual for the journey to enlightenment, sampajjana is better
translated as “evaluation” or “good judgment” rather than
“clear understanding.” It is not knowledge for knowledge’s
sake. Nor is it a way of “savoring” our present-moment expe-
rience “just as it is.” Sampajjana is instrumental. It means
understanding that a particular thought, sensation, or action
will either help or hinder our movement toward immediate
and long-term goals.
For the monk, sampajjana meant recognizing what was
good and bad, useful or useless, in even the smallest mat-
ters, so he could control his behavior and eventually become
enlightened. If he saw an attractive girl, he had to evaluate
what she meant for him and how he should respond. She
wasn’t bad or evil in herself, but further acquaintance with
her would be bad for him if he wanted to awaken. He couldn’t
make any kind of progress without making functional yes-no,
right-wrong, good-bad judgment calls every step of the way.
This is probably true for any great achievement in life.
To stay solidly on track toward any distant goal, we have to
be able to say “no,” most of the time at least, to the potential
distractions along the way. We may have different goals from
m
onks, but the same principle of discriminating attention
applies to us. Cheesecake, as a dense form of the sugars and
fats that our bodies need, would undoubtedly have been seen
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as “good” throughout most of human existence. Our instincts tell us that it is good. It certainly tastes good. If we are dia-betic, however, or if we need to lose weight, cheesecake is defi-
nitely bad for us, and we need to act as if that is the truth.
Ultimately, an elite monk would see into the deep nature
of existence itself and evaluate it as “suffering, impermanent
and devoid of self.” This is the classical “road to Damascus”
insight in Buddhism. This insight is said to result in profound
disgust and a resolution to abandon the world, and it is the
precursor to full awakening. I give this example not to sug-
gest that the Buddha’s opinion about the world was right, but
to illustrate how integral good judgment was to his concept
of mindfulness.
Another primary meaning of sati is “memory.” In the texts,
this is described as constantly holding our ultimate goals in
mind. This is actually very hard to do. We are hardwired to
discount future benefits against immediate pleasures. None-
theless, these long-term goals should ideally determine our
judgments in the present. But before I explain further how
mindfulness contributes to good judgment, let’s explore
another facet of what sati itself implies.
SATI: TO HOLD SOMETHING IN MIND
Sati means “to pay attention to” or “to focus on” something. It is a transitive verb, not a noun. It is not a “thing.” It is something
that we do. This means it is always oriented toward an object.
To “be mindful” is to “hold in mind” anything that the mind
is capable of conceiving. Above all, sati is “selective, sustained attention.” You say “yes” to this, and “no” to everything else. You
orient toward an object ( vitakka) and lock on to it ( vicara).
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To be mindful also means holding the object metaphori-
cally in front of you. This suggests objectivity and clarity of
vision. This mental space is what Descartes, in his Meditations,