MAKING THE MIND AGILE AND ACCURATE
Train for immediate attention to whatever arises in awareness.
This is classically rendered as: In
order to take unexpected conditions as the path, immediately join whatever you meet with meditation.
This involves competency in vitakka and vicara, (aiming and sustaining attention), quickly bringing mindful
awareness to whatever thoughts and feelings that arise. Vitakka is applied attention, and vicara maintains mindful
awareness sufficient for investigating the emerging thoughts and feelings to determine whether they are wholesome or
unwholesome. The primary strategy for developing this is the practice of mindfulness of breathing meditation.
Acquiring the breath is a daily routine of being mindful of breathing in order to maintain the ability for attention to be
disciplined and quickly brought to focus.
Vitakka and vicara are processes that can happen without mindfulness; in that case, these qualities are driven by
desire, aversion or ignorance. When mindfulness is associated with vitakka and vicara through breath awareness, the
ability to quickly and effectively investigate emerging thoughts and feelings can be more generally applied. In this way,
it’s similar to using a gym workout to develop strength; of course, the strength can be used in situations other than
being in a gym.
Functionally, different areas of the brain are activated when stimulated by a stimulus. For example, seeing
something activates the visual cortex in the brain, with some neural activation also stimulating the mid-brain, called the
limbic system. Within this system, preliminary perceptions of the stimulus of the amygdala, which assesses “friend or
foe; food or poison?” This process is incompletely processed, but typically initiates the neural networks preparatory to
taking action. Meanwhile, the incoming visual signal is being more fully processed elsewhere in the brain. Also involved
in the process is the prefrontal cortex in the forehead. This system regulates the stimulation generated by the
amygdala, moderating any impulsive reactivity.
When mindfulness isn’t activated in this process, there’s a tendency to impulsively react to the initial, not full
processed stimulation, that is, to “jump to a conclusion”. Research suggests that mindfulness, combined with stability of
attention and lowered arousal (that is, the active involvement of samadhi/passadhi), can increase the “signal strength”
of the connection between the moderating action of the prefrontal cortex and the urgency of the amygdala signal. In
psychological terms this is called “impulse control”, and has been useful in addressing anxiety and addictive disorders.
In the research paper How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work?, Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual
and Neural Perspective, published in Perspectives on Psychological Science in 2011, by Sara Lazar, et al, various neural sites and
functions related to mindfulness are proposed, based on current research. It seems that the brain areas associated with mindfulness
include:
1. Anterior Cingulate Cortex (frontal midline between left and right cortical hemispheres) regulates attention
(stability of focus), related to bringing attention to an object and reducing “mind wandering”
2. Insular Cortex and Tempero-Parietal Junction (Inner lining of temporal cortex and crease between temporal
cortex and parietal cortex), associations regarding internal sensory awareness (mindfulness of the body).
3. Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (top center of the forehead). Increases cognitive flexibility regarding emotions.
4. Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex (middle center of forehead). Modulates urgent signals from the amygdala.
5. Medial Prefrontal Cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, insula, temporo-parietal junction (numbers 2 and 4 above).
Fosters flexibility regarding self-identity; that is, diminished urgency regarding self-gratification or selfdefensiveness.
Additional research involving how the practice of mindfulness of breathing changes the structure of the brain is
extensive. We know that the regular practice of intending to be presently aware of the beginning of the sensations of
breathing in (vitakka), combined with persistent focus (vicara) on the changing nature of breathing in, and repeating this
routine for extended period of time changes the structure of the brain, particularly in regards to strengthening the
neural connectivity in the insular and tempero-parietal cortex. Additionally, there’s an increasingly strong connection
from the prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate gyrus to the amygdala, increasing the capability to effectively regulate
impulsive emotional reactivity.
When the neural pathways just mentioned are activated through mindfulness of breathing practice, those very same
pathways are primed to be mindfully aware of how distractions occur, and those pathways are strong enough to divert
attention away from emerging thoughts when they are emotionally charged. This is how we learn to literally, “change
our minds”. With enough training, the ability to be self-aware and self-regulating doesn’t necessarily have to involve
breath awareness, in the same way that strengthening muscles at a gym doesn’t prevent using that additional strength
generally, away from the gym.
The intention of this is to remember to integrate the practice of vipassana and the tranquility of benevolent
intention with daily occurrences. Of course, this requires daily meditation training, hopefully for at least 45 minutes a
day. The next step is to find ways to quickly apply this ability to be mindful during daily life routines.
This part of the practice will involve some very creative and perhaps challenging adaptations in our work-dominated
culture. It is often quite useful to have little prompts around, such as cards or screen savers that say be mindful.
Ironically, the demands of work, consumption, relationship and other lifestyle factors provide a rich opportunity for
spiritual growth, provided there is a substantial effort applied to cultivating mindfulness, vipassana and bodhicitta.