2 Types of Mindfulness and Why This Distinction Matters
And why it doesn’t matter at the same time
Many people view the spiritual journey as one of a gradual path toward enlightenment. The best example is Buddha himself.
From growing up in a protected, separated, but eventually illusionary shelter,
to encountering suffering, passing through spiritual milestones
to arrive at the final point of enlightenment and the end of illusion under the tree he was sitting.
There are countless depictions of
what was important on this journey,
what made enlightenment possible,
to what enlightenment even is in the first and last place.
But those questions only concern us in as much as they inform out actual lived experience. We’re not here to be detectives of the journey of the Buddha nor to end years of disputes. We also don’t look to believe any dogma.
What is interesting is the journey itself. It can also be found in two particular forms of mindfulness that people tend to distinguish:
- Dual: You pay strategic attention to your breath, body, surroundings, feelings, or moods.
- Nondual: This is the state in which any separation between you as a separate experiencer and what is experienced is dissolved. There is only lived experience left. You have a glimpse that this experience is you. You feel more alive, alert, and compassionate as this awareness. When you live in this state of mind all the time you could be called enlightened
Your spiritual journey can seem like you’re on a path where you start with being identified with thoughts,
to noticing your thoughts,
and finally to embracing the awareness that is the space of thinking and non-thinking.
But once you do realize the last step, you also notice that there was never a distance between you and this state. Even in your most identified state, you were nothing but this awareness. In suffering, you weren’t suffering. In unclenching your fist, your fist never was clenching.
The problem with this view is that at no point on your journey can you give a valid point for not having already made it. You can’t point at your own un-enlightenment, because that can only happen from a place of awareness. Any thought is just another thought in awareness. There never really is separation. Thinking there is a point to reach is the only thing holding you back from reaching it.
Yet this problem about the path is also a thought. So the path is as real as the non-path. The two types of mindfulness are both separate and united.
Now this is more than some empty exercise. Wherever you are, there you are. Pay attention to your breath or rest as nondual awareness.
And do let me know what arises as you read this.
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