Minimal-Dual Awareness as Epistemic Access: Existence-Reality, Cognitive Constructivism, and Contemplative Method

Abstract

This paper develops a novel account of minimal-dual awareness as a disciplined epistemic method that systematically alters the access conditions of consciousness to reveal structures of temporality and cognition. Building on an Existential Realism (ER) framework, we argue that conventional, detached cognition often conflates reality with existence and thereby obscures the special role of the present. Cognitive Constructivism (CC) provides a second pillar by showing how we actively build interpretive schemas and world‑models, rendering much of experience “transparent” to ordinary awareness. We propose that contemplative practice – especially in forms of mindful, present-centered attention – disrupts these habitual structures. By reducing discursive narrative and the subject-object divide to its minimal form, contemplative awareness de-brackets stored memories and projections and makes normally implicit cognitive constructs manifest. Contrary to mystical or absolutist interpretations, this state grants no metaphysical access beyond empirical reality; rather it changes epistemic salience so that underlying features of experience become directly available for reflection. The core thesis is that minimal-dual contemplative awareness is an epistemically rigorous condition, not a mystical insight, which illuminates the temporal constitution of experience and the constructive machinery of mind, thereby extending the reach of both ER and CC. The paper reviews relevant debates in phenomenology, cognitive science, and contemplative studies, develops the theoretical framework, analyzes how minimal‑dual awareness functions as epistemic access, and explores implications for philosophy and science.