What is the Essence of Meditation

Attention is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. – William James, psychologist and philosopher

A fascinating conversation between Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk and molecular biologist and Wolf Singer, a neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute, throws light on the relationship between meditation and our brains. What comes out is an attention-dependent model that is part of an emerging discipline, called science of the mind.

The essence of meditation is attention. The task of attention is to select contents for processing in the workplace of consciousness. These contents are sensory signals coming from the external world or from inside the body as well as thoughts and emotions generated within the brain.

The brain is a problem-solving machine and is always on the lookout for problems to solve. The source of these problems are the contents we pay attention to and bring into the workplace. The problems could be concrete ones as well as imagined ones - arising when we think and feel about the past or the future.

Once a solution is found, the brain finds harmony with neurons firing as one. This generates positive feelings. Meditation also produces positive feelings, although in a different way - it uses attention to clean the workplace of all contents and then, protects the workplace from intrusion by wandering thoughts.

Put simply, meditation harnesses attention to clear the workplace of all specific contents. In this harmonious state the brain is temporarily without conflict and not searching for an answer to a question or attempting to solve a problem.

For a common person to generate such a detached state from concrete contents is difficult. This is the reason we are told to imagine, at least in the initial stages, concrete objects to focus on, like body parts (e.g. below lip, heart) or external things (e.g. candle flame).

In the Buddhist way, given in the figure below, we learn to let thoughts come and go without occupying the mind, like a cloud being blown by the wind across the sky. There is no effort to block or prevent thoughts from arising, but they undo themselves as they arise, without spreading or leaving any trace. The mind is free of wandering thoughts, undistracted, clear, and present. As one does this again and again, the number of thoughts popping up reduces.

Generally, we focus our attention outward on the world around us. In meditation, attention is turned inward. Once turned inward, the brain is used to study arising thoughts and emotions in an intentional and focused way, similar to how we attend to events in the outer world. This is the cornerstone of science of the mind.

(This is in remembrance of the World Meditation Day celebrated on 21 December every year)