Abstract
Mindfulness interventions and meditation form a mental training towards deconditioning. This paper outlines the mental development during long term mindfulness meditation (vipassanā). It is intended to give researchers in the neurosciences and practitioners of mindfulness based interventions an idea of the phenomenological side of this form of meditation. Mindfulness acts as a separator between the perceived actor in us and the things we cognize and act upon. This makes us more flexible. At the same time our view of self will change: no longer is our ‘agency’ seen as a fixed ‘thing’ or ‘being’ that acts in the world, but as a process of sensory input, appraisal, thinking, acting, depending on various mental states.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Children sometimes play the following game. They repeat an ordinary word, like ‘yellow’, many times. After a while they loose the meaning of the word, there is just the sound. This phenomenon is called a ‘semantic fateague’. From the point of view of insight meditation a word has a sound and a meaning. When a word is repeated often, the sound and meaning are separated. Actually the child still knows very well what ‘yellow’ means.
References
Augustine of Hippo. (397) (1955). Confessions (A. C. Outler, Trans.)., St. Augustine: Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
Augustine of Hippo (2008). Confessions, Translation: H. Chadwick Oxford World’s Classics, Oxford University Press.
Barendregt, H. P. (1988). Buddhist phenomenology. In M. dalla Chiara (Ed.), Proceedings of the Conference on Topics and Perspectives of Contemporary Logic and Philosophy of Science (pp. 37–55). Bologna: Clueb. URL: www.cs.ru.nl/~henk/BP/bp1.html
Barendregt, H. P. (1996). Mysticism and beyond, Buddhist phenomenology, Part II. In The Eastern Buddhist (New series, Vol. XXIX, pp. 262–287). URL: www.cs.ru.nl/~henk/BP/bp2.html
Barendregt, J. T. (2008). Phobias and related fears. Unpublished. Available at ftp://ftp.cs.kun.nl/pub/CompMath.Found/JTBarendregtFobias.pdf. (Original work published 1982: Fobiëen en verwante angsten. In J. T. Barendregt De zielenmarkt, Over psychotherapie in alle ernst (pp. 163–180). Meppel: Boom).
Bodhi, B. (2000). A comprehensive manual of Abhidhamma: The Abhidhammattha Sangaha of Ācariya Anuruddha. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, Pariyatti Editions.
Duck, M. (1988). Newton and Goethe on colour: Physical and physiological considerations. Annals of Science, 45(5), 507–519. 13.
Gethin, R. (2008). Sayings of the Buddha: New translations from the Pali Nikaya, Oxford World’s Classics, Oxford University Press.
Hölzel, B. K., Ott, U., Gard, T., Hempel, H., Weygandt, M., Morgen, K., & Vaitl, D. (2008). Investigation of mindfulness meditation practitioners with voxel-based morphometry. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 3(1), 55–61.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2003). Mindfulness-based interventions in context: Past, present and future. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 10(2), 144–156.
Ñañamoli, B. (1976). The path of purification [Visuddhimagga] (B. Buddhagosa, (approximately 430 A. D.), Trans.). Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society.
Ribe, N., & Steinle, F. (2002). Exploratory experimentation: Goethe, land, and colour theory. Physics Today, 55(7), 43–49.
Sepper, D. L. (2007). Goethe contra Newton: Polemics and the project for a new science of color. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Singer, W. (1999). Neuronal synchrony: A versatile code for the definition of relations? Neuron, 24(1), 49–65.
Slagter, H. A., Lutz, A., Greischar, L. L., Francis, A. D., Nieuwenhuis, S., et al. (2007). Training affects distribution of limited brain resources. PLoS Biology, 5(6), e138.
St. John of the Cross (2008). Dark night of the soul, translated by E. Allison Peers, Wilder, Radford VA.
Staal, F. (1975). Exploring mysticism. Berkeley: University of California Press.
van den Hurk, P. A. M., Giommi, F., Gielen, S. C., Speckens, A. E. M., & Barendregt, H. P. (2009). Greater efficiency in attentional processing related to mindfulness meditation. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63(6), 1168–1180. URL: www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=jour~content=a915419588
Veening, J. G., & Barendregt, H. P. (2010). The regulation of brain states by neuroactive substances distributed via the cerebrospinal fluid; a review. Cerebrospinal Fluid Research, 7(1), 1. URL: www.cerebrospinalfluidresearch.com/content/7/1/1
Veening, J. G., de Jong, T., & Barendregt, H. P. (2010). Oxytocin messages via the cerebrospinal fluid: Behavioural effects, a review. Physiology & Behavior, 101(2), 193–210.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Netherlands
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Barendregt, H. (2011). Mindfulness Meditation: Deconditioning and Changing View. In: Walach, H., Schmidt, S., Jonas, W. (eds) Neuroscience, Consciousness and Spirituality. Studies in Neuroscience, Consciousness and Spirituality, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2079-4_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2079-4_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-2078-7
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-2079-4
eBook Packages: Behavioral ScienceBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)