1. Mindfulness

HOMUNCULUS

ACTIVE PRACTICES IN THE "REAL WORLD".

When we speak of the "fullness" of the mind, we do not mean that it is full of a million and one elements of folly, but that it has the "fullness" of its natural potential. But what is the fullness of its natural potential?

It is to operate correctly in its function of generating correct and natural external behavior which fully supports and nurtures, through feedback, the Life Force programs of the Feminine Principle.

This means that there must be a dedication to constant introspection through an internal awareness of conscious afferent and efferent activity from the first moment that an experience is extracted from the undifferentiated external milieu to the nature of the natural other-directedness which is essential.

It might then be useful here to examine the afferent and efferent processes which are involved in directing natural and correct behavior.

It all begins when some element of the apparent external impinges as an irritant upon our magnificent set of five sensors (vision, olfaction, tact, taste and audition).

If we imagine our sensors as a mirror, then the first event is the appearance of the image upon the face that mirror. That first impression is AWARENESS.

The message sent to the RIGHT HEMISPHERE confirms the state of being ALIVE.

Now that mirror is facing the external world, so what we now have is a magnificent transition in which there is a second transformed image upon the back of the mirror, which we will call RAW UNDIFFERENTIATED SENSATION (form).

At that point, there is a division in information flow. One path then leads to the LEFT HEMISPHERE and the other to the RIGHT HEMISPHERE and each results in different applications. 

Let us consider first the well-known path to the LEFT HEMISPHERE:

         CLEAR COMPREHENSION: The moment of the extraction of a specific experience from the RAW UNDIFFERENTIATED SENSATION.

         SENSATION:  The recognition as a new or old irritation.

DISCRIMINATION:  The recall of information leading to APPROACH-AVOIDANCE-NEUTRALITY.

PERCEPTION: where NAME is given to  a FORM (derived from the right hemisphere).

MEMORY:  which is primordial, short-term, or long-term.

COGNITION: where responses are prepared from attitudes and intentions.

CONSCIOUSNESS: A screen where we believe we "know" what is happening.

Now let us examine the RIGHT HEMISPHERE path without great detail:

SPECIFIC AWARENESS: The moment of the extraction of a specific experience from the TOTAL AWARENESS of the mirror.

FUNCTION: The LIFE FORCE PROGRAMS (Feminine Principle) which allow the abstract program to be developed by SHEN into means of EXPRESSION (Masculine Principle).

ESSENCE: From the AWARENESS line is extracted the affirmation of the correct functioning of the SIX senses. No information of content is extracted.

UNDIFFERENTIATED FORM: From the AWARENESS line the undifferentiated form is transformed into undifferentated potential forms.

Here there arises the most important interface with the LEFT HEMISPHERE... (there are others at other levels), in which the form which is here undifferentiated from the LEFT is balanced with that from the RIGHT, both of no use in cognition, and is given a NAME by PERCEPTION (taken from MEMORY) if there is conformity.

COGNITION now uses all the information available to evolve INTENTIONS which must be confirmed as CORRECT. If it is not correct there is more investigation and perhaps external exploratory behavior.

MINDFULNESS IS DIRECTED AT DIFFERENT LEFT HEMISPHERE OPERATIONS and specifically at the following, although all that is available is the data from COGNITION:

Continual Awareness of Clear Comprehension

Continual Introspection upon Attitudes and Intentions

Continual Consciousness of Word Folly

Continual Gestalt Consciousness

Continual Other-Directedness

Cultivation of Whole-body Consciousness

You can read more about this Mindfulness within the CHAN DHARMA LIBERATION CONTEMPLATIONS

MINDFULNESS MEDITATION 

 We can proceed with correct meditations upon the foundations of Mindfulness:

I. Kayanupassana

 (Contemplation on the Body)

II. Vedananupassana

(Contemplation on Feelings)

III. Cittanupassana

 (Contemplation on the Mind)

                                                   IV. Dhammanupassana

             (Contemplation on the contents of the mind)

These are to found in the Mahasatipatthana Sutta