Meditation and Nonmeditation

Effortless, nondual awareness often arises outside formal meditation, arising spontaneously during informal practices such as mindful eating, dishwashing, or brief 'micromeditations.' The chapter distinguishes between 'dual meta-awareness' (an apparent self observing awareness) and 'nondual meta-awareness' (being the self-aware looking itself), which feels entirely effortless and uncreated. Participants report that nondual awareness does not feel fabricated by a meditating self but arises like grace. Important phenomenological differences exist between pure awareness in dual versus nondual mindfulness contexts.

Study at a glance

Abstract

A bit like balancing a ball on a stick, the moment when it is in balance is characterized by lightness and naturalness, but is at the same time very difficult to hold.[#1457] It is difficult to put into words, but through meditation I can create conditions (by relaxing into the moment) and it comes or not, like grace [#2714]This chapter unites three major topics: the phenomenology of effortlessness and the experience of spontaneity, plus the in ter est ing fact that experiences of pure awareness quite often occur outside formal meditation practice.Among the most common contexts in which pure awareness arises are informal but still deliberate forms of practice that weave mindful awareness into everyday activities.These include mindfully eating or mindfully washing the dishes, sprinkling brief "micromeditations" throughout the day, repeatedly "glimpsing" a nondual state and then immediately letting it go, or-as discussed in chapter 14-practicing satipaṭṭhāna, informally establishing mindfulness during the day as part of living an examined inner life.Let us begin by recalling that "dual meta-awareness" and "nondual meta-awareness" are two distinct regions within the space of pos si ble states described as the pureawareness experience.As we saw in chapters 26, 27, and 28, the phenomenal quality of awareness itself can occur in the context of an apparent self looking at awareness, as well as in the context of looking from awareness or "being the self-aware looking itself."In the second case, the overall process is often described as entirely effortless.Accordingly, there also exists a phenomenology of nonmeditation, and there are impor tant differences between pure awareness in the context of dual mindfulness and pure awareness in the context of nondual mindfulness.If we take our participants' reports at face value, nondual awareness does not feel like something that has been fabricated or created by a meditating self; rather, it feels 32 Meditation and Nonmeditation