The Problem of Mindfulness

How would you describe a state of mind in which you remain thoughtless as long as you want? Thoughts will only arrive in your conscious mind when you summon them and you can hold a thought as long as you want. You remain perfectly peaceful, tranquil without blabbering and urges of the mind without exerting as in meditation. Meditation is no longer an act but a state of your mind.

When your mind is perfectly under control without effort, you have become awakened (or enlightened), because now you truly possess a free will in the truest sense of the word. Earlier when your mind was in control, your innate tendencies were driving your actions, based on external stimuli. Anger, greed, lust, envy, fear and other negative emotions thrive in such a state of mind naturally and one has to exert to check them.

I'd urge you to try concentrative meditation, wherein one tries to hold a thought (could be visualizing a form, or listening to a sound ETC) and see the power of conditioned mind. Observe how long you can hold it. For instance, if you're visualizing a form, you may discover that within matter of few seconds it starts fading, dancing or completely gone. Similarly If you are meditating on sound, you will find that within few seconds your mind has distracted and you have to exert to retain your focus. The mind is not in your control and such a conditioned mind can form opinions and dilute you. But an enlightened mind, perfectly in control cannot have delusion and ever lives in present moment. Opinions and judgement are tools of a conditioned mind, ever fearful and constantly striving to ensure survival of the body.

That said, I'm not yet an enlightened being; I'm striving for it by walking path of meditation, kindness and chanting [0]. I do have experiences and glimses confirming most of what I've written, but I have not attained the final state yet. If you're truly curious and want to read, learn and practice more about this, I'd encourage you to read Om Swami's books. The one on meditation [1] takes you through the journey of a meditator with states and stages of mind and awareness that you'll find intriguing and hopefully interesting to pursue. Simple yet precise methods and practices have been given along with a method to measure one's progress.

0: I use Black Lotus app for logging and measuring my meditation and chanting sessions as well as random acts of kindness (RAKs) (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rt.pinpric...) - inspired by same author 1: https://www.amazon.com/Million-Thoughts-Meditation-Himalayan...

Of course not, you're a mindful person!

> I wasn’t presenting a philosophy.

You made statements of philosophical relevance, which were answered in kind.

> In the context of the quote, omniscience is a valid term.

Sure, in the context of psychobabble, any word can mean anything you want. If you asked Deepak Chopra about quantum mechanics, you would get a "wealth" of meaningless drivel that may nevertheless sound highly profound to the uninitiated.

> For example, a child may say “I’m no good at maths”. Yet you spend some time helping them patiently, and in time they gain some confidence, maybe even some mastery, and that particular once firmly-held notion is proven to be false, an obscuration.

A child that says they're "no good at math" is probably telling the truth. Let's suppose the child really wasn't good at math. They haven't had any practice, why should they be good at math? After all this practice, they may become good at math, but the child wasn't good at maths before. Their earlier self-assessment hasn't been proven false. It was true at the time and forever will have been true.

> The first level being the thought “I’m no good at maths” and the second level being the firmly-held belief that it’s an immutable fact.

The statement "I'm no good at maths" doesn't actually imply such a "firmly-held belief". A statement like "I'm no good at math and I never will be no matter what I do" would. Perhaps a child might make such a statement. They're not really in the position to know, but the possibility exists that it is a more or less immutable fact. Dyscalculia is a thing, you know.

See, if I didn't make this distinction, you might get away with having said something that sounds profound. It really isn't!

> Beyond all this, the identity you ascribe to me (“kook”, “my philosophy”) is all your creation.

I never called you a kook and I don't think you're kook. I think you're an ordinary person that, like many people, found some appeal in mindfulness. I'm not saying that mindfulness doesn't work or that subjectively it doesn't have benefits that outweigh the drawbacks.

However, the foundational teachings behind it are ultimately meaningless. They sound profound, but if you nail them down and try to get them to actually say something with a concrete meaning, they tend to fall apart. They are left intentionally vague to let your preconceived notions fill in the gaps. It's very persuasive.

In any event, you can't entirely divorce the foundation from the practice. That's the point of the article.

> I appreciate now that you don’t like Buddhism.

It's not that I don't like it. I'd like to like it! Nevertheless, I find it misguided. It deserves scrutiny like any belief system.

> That doesn’t automatically mean that I came here to argue with you about that.

I don't expect you to. Nevertheless, I appeal to maintain your critical thinking. Don't do too much non-thinking. You can do that when you're dead.