The Mind Illuminated

Lost in thoughts

John Yates, also known as Culadasa, directs the Dharma Treasure Buddhist Sangha in Tuscon, Arizona. He has worked in a wide variety of traditions including, Theravada, Tibetan traditions, and he also taught physiology and neuroscience.

He wrote the book The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Using Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science, which is refreshing in its use of Stages. Many practitioners want to skip to the end of the path and end up slowing their practice down unknowingly. By focusing on stages, the meditator can focus on what they need to master first before moving onto the next stage, and thereby they keep from getting lost.

In this review I’ll focus on some of Culadasa’s insights into how mindfulness works, and the challenges of a wandering mind.

Insight

At the start Culadasa warns meditators to not get lost. He says, “the point isn’t to force your experience to match something you have read…You must move through the Stages in order, without skipping any of them. To make progress, you should correctly determine your current Stage, work diligently with the techniques you’re given, and move on only when you have achieved mastery. Mastery of one Stage is a requirement for the mastery of the next, and none can be skipped…Taking ‘shortcuts’ just creates problems and ultimately prolongs the process — so they’re not really shortcuts. Diligence is all you need to make the fastest progress possible.”

One has to “practice according to whatever is happening in your meditation in the present”, and work “with the specific obstacles and goals appropriate to your current skill level.”

As the reader moves along, Culadasa drops some major insights that we ultimately have to find for ourselves, beyond reading, but intellectually they can help with the practice. He says, “as you continue to meditate, this fact of ‘no-Self’ becomes increasingly clear, but you can’t afford to wait for that Insight. For the sake of making progress, it’s best to drop this notion [of a permanent Self], at least at an intellectual level, as soon as possible.” The illusion of the self comes together via “the content of many separate moments, provided by…sense categories, [that] get briefly stored in a kind of ‘working’ memory, where they are combined and integrated with each other. Then the ‘product’ of this integration is projected into consciousness as yet another distinct type of mind moment.”

Intention

Like other masters, Culadasa emphasizes the role of intention in meditation, which is directing our attention span in the practice. He says, “at every Stage, all ‘you’ really do is patiently and persistently hold intentions to respond in specific ways to whatever happens during your meditation. Holding this intention, together with returning our attention to the breath over and over whenever we get distracted, informs the unconscious weighing process that keeping the focus on the breath is important. Repeating simple tasks with a clear intention can reprogram unconscious mental processes. This can completely transform who you are as a person.”

“The basic rule for training the mind in meditation is to always intentionally select the locus of attention. With monkey-mind, attention is constantly moving, so you finesse the situation by intentionally expanding this area. You let the mind keep moving, but only within the boundaries that you’ve intentionally set. Instead of trying to hold the monkey still, you give it a larger cage to move in.”

Targeted and wide

What I find different about his approach is his instruction to develop, what he calls, metacognitive introspective awareness, which is to stand back and observe the mind state and activities while meditating. Culadasa wants the practitioner to notice how the practice and thoughts are affecting the mind state so that the practitioner doesn’t become dull in too much attention, and ignore the peripheral awareness. By including peripheral awareness, the meditator can keep the big picture context of their environment, thoughts and mind states, while focusing attention. Therefore objectivity is preserved and it can prevent being stuck in “subjectivity and projection.”

He says, “you simply do exercises where you practice sustaining close attention and strong peripheral awareness at the same time. This is the only way to make consciousness more powerful. The more vivid you can make your attention while still sustaining awareness, the more power you will gain.”

Forgetting

Like Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Culadasa emphasizes the importance of noticing our forgetting, which is getting lost in thoughts. When we get lost in thoughts in meditation, it can be sneaky. There are subtle distractions before one gets to gross distractions, forgetting, and then realizing being lost. Here he recommends labeling. The meditator labels the thoughts related to being lost, and then returns to the breath. The following practices help the meditator with their inevitable challenges of slipping off the breath:

Following

With Following you “practice recognizing the individual sensations that make up each in-and out-breath. First, carefully observe the sensations between the beginning and end of the in-breath until you can recognize three or four distinct sensations every time. Continue to observe the rest of the breath cycle just as clearly as before. When you can consistently recognize several sensations with every in-breath, do the same with the out-breath. Your intention will be to follow the breath with vividness and clarity, and to be aware of very fine details. If you miss the mark, don’t worry. You always have the next breath to work with.”

Connecting

Connecting is an extension of following that involves making comparisons and associations.

You connect “by observing the two [breath] pauses closely, and notice which is longer and which is shorter. Next, compare the in-and out-breaths to each other. Are they the same length, or is one longer than the other? When you can compare the lengths clearly, expand the task to include relative changes over time. Are the in-and out-breaths longer or shorter than they were earlier? If the in-breath was longer than the out-breath, or vice versa, is that still the case? Are the pauses between the in-and out-breaths longer or shorter than they were? Is the longer of the two pauses still the same as before?”

Investigating the breath

“Once you reach Stages Four and Five, your introspective awareness will have improved enough that you can start connecting the details of the breath cycle to your state of mind. When you find the mind agitated and there are more distractions, ask yourself: Is the breath longer or shorter, deeper or shallower, finer or coarser than when the mind is calm? What about the length or depth of the breath during a spell of drowsiness? Do states of agitation, distraction, concentration, and dullness affect the out-breath more or in a different way than they do with the in-breath? Do they affect the pause before the in-breath more or less than they affect the pause before the out-breath? The actual number of sensations you can perceive isn’t that important. What matters is that your perception grows sharper, and that you stay interested in, and attentive to the breath.”

As we are following and connecting, distractions are bound to start up again. Culadasa says, “when attention alternates between the breath and a sound, thought, feeling, or bodily sensation, flickering even briefly between the two, it’s a distraction. There are typically several such distractions in your field of conscious awareness at any one time. You might not notice these movements of attention because they’re so rapid. Nevertheless, this alternating attention creates a scattering of attention to distractions. These are the distractions that potentially cause forgetting.”

Labeling

To manage forgetting, Culadasa recommends we “use labeling to practice identifying the distraction in the very moment you realize you’re no longer on the breath. The practice of labeling will strengthen your introspective awareness enough so you can consistently identify which distractions are most likely to steal your attention in the first place. Introspective awareness will eventually be strong enough to alert you to a distraction before forgetting happens. If you catch yourself thinking about your next meal or something that happened yesterday, give the distraction a neutral label such as ‘thinking,’ ‘planning,’ or ‘remembering.’ Simple, neutral labels are less likely to cause further distractions by getting you caught up in the labeling. If there was a series of thoughts, only label the most recent one. Also, always avoid analyzing distractions, which only creates more distraction. Once you’ve labeled the distraction, gently direct your attention back to the breath.”

Checking in

Culadasa says, “Instead of waiting for introspective awareness to arise spontaneously, you intentionally turn your attention inward to see what’s happening in the mind. Doing this check-in requires longer periods of stable attention. Checking in not only strengthens introspective awareness, but also allows you to correct for gross distraction before it causes forgetting. It’s like you’re intentionally shifting your attention to take a ‘snapshot’ of the mind’s current activity to see if some distraction is about to make you forget. When you notice a gross distraction, tighten up attention on the breath to prevent forgetting.”

“It may also help to take a moment to label the distraction before returning to the breath. When you recognize a gross distraction before it completely captures your attention, return your attention to the breath and sharpen up your focus. That will keep you from forgetting. Sometimes, just identifying a gross distraction as a gross distraction is enough to make it dissipate. If it doesn’t, engage with the breath as fully as you can until it does. If it keeps returning, just keep repeating this simple process. Checking in should become a habit.”

Dullness

Another interesting passage, is Culadasa’s suggestions for dealing with dullness. He looks at it as a big threat to progression for the practitioner. To detect dullness you have to see first if what you have is drowsiness. He says, “if you’re fatigued by physical or mental stress, illness, or lack of sleep, you’ll be sleepy during meditation. So, regard a good night’s rest as an important part of your practice.” There are some meditators that like to test how little sleep you can get away with, when on retreat, but if you aren’t doing this and “still find yourself getting drowsy, you’ll know it’s dullness related to meditation.” Dullness can go from mild to strong and Culadasa provides a list that goes from mild to strong to progressively deal with this obstacle.

He recommends the following:

Take three or four deep breaths, filling the lungs as much as possible, and hold for a moment. Then exhale as forcefully and completely as possible through tightly pursed lips.
Tense all the muscles in your body until you begin to tremble slightly, then relax. Repeat several times.
Meditate while standing up.
Do walking meditation.
Worst-case scenario, get up, splash cold water on your face, then go back to practicing.

Eliminating thoughts causes dullness

Another cause of dullness is “when we turn the mind inward, [it] reduces the constant flow of thoughts and sensations that usually keep the mind energized and alert. Therefore, the overall energy level of the mind drops. With less stimulation, the brain winds down toward sleep, and the mind grows dull. This normally happens when we’re fatigued or at bedtime. In meditation, it’s not just turning inward that decreases mental energy, but when we focus on the breath too intensely and for too long, we are also excluding the thoughts and sensations that usually keep the mind alert. This is another reason why ‘looking beyond’ the meditation object with peripheral awareness is so important. When we stay aware of things in the background, we continue to stimulate brain activity and won’t sink into dullness.”

Thoughts in meditation

Culadasa says, “there is a common misconception that stilling the mind means getting rid of thoughts and blocking out all distractions. Often, students try to suppress these by focusing more intensely on the meditation object. This may seem like a reasonable strategy. Yet brute force never works for long in meditation. You simply can’t force the mind to do something it doesn’t want to. Also, since you have increased your mindfulness throughout the preceding Stages, you’re more conscious than ever of all the background mental activity, which also makes suppression impossible.”

“Stilling the mind means reducing the constant movement of attention between the breath and gross distractions. The key to doing this is directing and sustaining attention. However, to succeed, you’ll also need strong peripheral awareness, so you can notice potential distractions before they actually capture your attention. For example, when you’re carrying a full cup of hot tea through a crowded room, you want to sustain your attention on the cup while remaining aware of everything else around you. That way you can avoid a collision. Similarly, keep your primary focus on the breath and simply allow all other sensations and mental events in your peripheral awareness to just be there. Let them come, let them be, let them go.”

This is a long book, and like Seeing that frees by Rob Burbea, it pays to master the earlier material before moving onto the more advanced material to ensure efficient progress.

There are ten stages, so there is potentially years or decades of practice instructions in this guide. He describes what the meditator is to expect if they are diligent:

“[When] you have mastered Stage Ten and achieved the fourth and final Milestone when [concentration] typically persists from one regular meditation session to the next. Strong desires are noticeably weaker, negative mental reactions rarely occur, and anger and ill will virtually disappear. Others may find you generally happy and easily pleased, relaxed, agreeable, unaggressive, and peaceful. You will be relatively immune to disturbing events, and physical pain won’t particularly bother you. On mastering Stage Ten, the mind is described as unsurpassable.”

I’ll leave you with Culadasa’s quote from the Anapanasati Sutta, which encapsules good practice:

Experiencing the mind while breathing in, he trains himself. Experiencing the mind while breathing out, he trains himself.

Making the mind tranquil and fresh while breathing in, he trains himself. Making the mind tranquil and fresh while breathing out, he trains himself.

Concentrating the mind while breathing in, he trains himself. Concentrating the mind while breathing out, he trains himself.

Releasing the mind while breathing in, he trains himself. Releasing the mind while breathing out, he trains himself.

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