The Role of Nonduality in the Relationship Between Flow States and Well-Being

Most people engage in a handful of activities or hobbies they find intrinsically rewarding. This type of activity is performed because the experience or process itself is an enjoyable one, and not necessarily because it achieves a certain outcome or result. These activities are often creative and can be life passions, such as creating art or music, writing, dancing, or acting. Different forms of movement such as exercise and sports are also common. Though these types of activities can and do involve external rewards, such as winning competitions or gaining recognition, individuals are intrinsically motivated to continue doing them. Not only are these activities rewarding in and of themselves, but engaging in them can also help individuals cope with life’s challenges (Bien, 2005; Fritz & Avsec, 2007; Hughes & da Silva, 2011; Svensk et al., 2009). For instance, some individuals play the piano, go hiking, or even knit as a way to deal with stress (Adey, 2018). These activities frequently help individuals enter into what Csikszentmihalyi (2014) calls the flow state. During a state of flow, individuals become absorbed in the activity they perform as it provides a challenge-skill balance which keeps the individual engaged, without falling into boredom or anxiousness.

Much of the early empirical work on flow included experience sampling, or qualitative descriptions of flow experiences to better capture and understand their nature (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). Investigating flow through the use of experience sampling helped define the nine facets of the flow state, which led to the development of the Flow State Scale (Jackson & Marsh, 1996). Using this scale to examine flow experiences provided a way to measure varying degrees of flow, demonstrating that flow is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon, but that individuals often experience varying degrees of absorption into the flow state (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014; Fritz & Avsec, 2007; Jackson & Marsh, 1996).

The nine dimensions of the flow state include challenge-skill balance, clear goals, unambiguous feedback, concentration, transformation of time, action-awareness merging, paradox of control, loss of self-consciousness, and autotelic experience (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014; Jackson & Marsh, 1996). The ideal flow opportunity presents high challenge situations to individuals who possess sufficient skills to meet those challenges. For example, intermediate rock climbers may choose difficult routes to suit their abilities and challenge their strengths, while avoiding routes too far beyond their skill level that may seem impossible or overwhelming. Individuals typically set out with clear goals in mind and are aware of how well they are performing in reference to those goals. By the same token, the value of flow experiences is often found in the journey or process, and the activities are considered autotelic experiences. While a climber knows the goal of the activity is to complete the route, the reward of climbing comes from overcoming physical and mental challenges during the climb. Individuals experiencing flow can also become so deeply concentrated on the task at hand that their sense of time may speed up or slow down. The experience of actions and awareness merging refers to the effortless feeling that flow states often invoke. Indeed, individuals often report performing automatically without thinking too deeply (Adey, 2018; Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). With heightened focus on the task, other self-focused concerns often dissolve away, as described by the facet “loss of self-consciousness.” The paradox of control describes the perfectly calibrated and sometimes mysterious feeling of experiencing a sense of control over your actions despite not having to contemplate deeply what your next move will be (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). The mechanics of the task happen automatically yet deliberately, hence the paradox.

Flow experiences have been positively linked to well-being in past research (Collins et al., 2009; Csikszentmihalyi, 2014; Fritz & Avsec, 2007; Rankin et al., 2018). However, many past investigations between flow and well-being often only measured one particular aspect of well-being. Well-being refers to psychological wellness both in the short- and long-term (Ryff & Keyes, 1995) and scientific definitions of well-being include two different conceptualizations. One definition of well-being is subjective well-being, which refers to positive and negative mood, satisfaction with life, and includes the idea that individuals can subjectively evaluate their own happiness (Ryan & Deci, 2001). On the other hand, psychological well-being focuses on the internal feelings and perspectives a person holds towards themselves, others, and life in general, and includes more abstract ideas of happiness such as, fulfillment of life-long goals and living in accordance with one’s values (Ryan & Deci, 2001; Ryff, 1989). Both subjective and psychological well-being are important indicators of successful coping with life stress and have also demonstrated links to physical health (McGonigal, 2015; Ryan & Deci, 2001). Thus, well-being is an important indicator of successful functioning overall (Ryan & Deci, 2001). Furthermore, maintaining well-being in the face of stress is a vital aspect of living a meaningful and happy life (Ryan & Deci, 2001; Ryff, 1989).

Flow experiences have been considered to play a role in psychological well-being because flow activities provide an opportunity for growth and the achievement of goals in the long-term (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014; Ryan & Deci, 2001; Wrigley & Emmerson, 2011). Previous research has shown that in a sample of orchestra and singing students, dispositional tendencies towards flow experiences predicted increased subjective well-being and were related to more positive emotion (Fritz & Avsec, 2007). Another recent study examining the relationship between flow experiences and subjective well-being during a waiting period found that both law and doctoral-level students who reported higher frequencies of flow occurrences within the last week also reported fewer negative emotions, less worry, and more positive emotions during the waiting period for exam results or potential job offers (Rankin et al., 2018). In an experimental study, undergraduate students who played a flow-inducing version of Tetris (the challenge-level increased by completing successful moves) also reported more positive and fewer negative emotions than both a boredom (no increase in challenge-level) and an overload condition (too much increase in challenge-level; Rankin et al., 2018). Although playing Tetris may not be considered as meaningful or engaging as other forms of flow activities, these findings demonstrate a robust relationship between flow experiences and positive outcomes.

Although previous studies support the link between flow and certain aspects of well-being, there remains the important question of why flow experiences demonstrate such a strong link in the first place. One possible explanation for the link between flow states and short-term well-being (positive and negative emotion) is that immersive activities can promote concentration while potentially decreasing self-awareness, which leads to a decrease in the intensity of negative emotions (Gross, 1998; Leary & Gohar, 2014). Similarly, flow encourages a loss of self-consciousness that might otherwise cause the person to worry about themselves or others (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). Yet, merely losing a self-focus does not seem to capture the transformative experience that flow often produces. Instead, a contemplative perspective may shed light on the mechanism by which conceptions of the self, emotions, and reality are redefined during a state of flow, and why immersive and creative activities have the potential to catalyze a shift in attentional focus and self-conceptualization that leads to well-being.

The integration of self during flow activities parallels ideas found in the larger philosophical perspective of nonduality. Nonduality describes a unification between subject and object, such that boundaries between self and world dissolve. This perspective permeates many different religious, mystical, and philosophical traditions, and can be explicitly found in the Hindu schools of Advaita Vedānta and Kashmiri Shaivism, Mahāyāna Buddhism, and Tibetan Bon Dzogchen and implicitly present in Daoist traditions (Blackstone, 2015; Krägeloh, 2018; Wright, 2017).

For example, flow shares conceptual similarities with the Daoist description of wu-wei, or “non-doing.” In the Dao de Jing, the ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu describes the way of the Dao as an embodiment of dichotomies (Lao Tzu, 4th century BC/1991). He encourages that we behave like water; fluid and flexible, yet strong and powerful. For our endeavors, this means we should strive for a feeling of effortlessness. It seems counter-intuitive at first to imagine how disengagement from a goal might be more efficient in achieving that goal. We can conceptualize non-doing as behaving in an effortless way to execute a task that would otherwise be considered challenging.

The Dexterous Butcher is a famous proverb by Zhuangzi that describes a cook cutting up an ox (de Bary & Bloom, 1968). A beginner would “hack” away at the meat, but the butcher knows the way of non-doing, and can effortlessly glide the knife through the meat while avoiding all the joints and ligaments. Like flow, there is a balance of challenge and skills, a merging of action and awareness, and the focus is no longer on the self. In such an absorbed state, the self is not merely ignored, but rather transforms as the person becomes integrated into the activity. The subject (the butcher) and the object (cutting the ox) have merged into a single dynamic unit. This experience, commonly described as becoming One with the object, is a feature of nonduality.

 This transformation of self differs from the typical everyday experience, which contains varying degrees of separation between ourselves and what we consider the outside world. While nonduality describes a perspective about the relationship between subject-object, fully realizing nonduality, or nondual awareness, is a non-representational and reflexive consciousness in which distinctions between subject and object no longer endure and is spontaneously realized (Josipovic, 2019; Krägeloh, 2018). While phenomenological aspects of nonduality may be realized and described during particular experiences, nondual awareness describes consciousness that is inherently aware of itself (Dunne et al., 2019; Josipovic, 2019). This realization is reflexive and non-conceptual, meaning that the awareness knows itself instantly and does not contain mental content or representations. Some scholars argue that scientific investigation cannot capture the true experience of nondual awareness because the very act of describing or measuring the experience inadvertently ruins its purely non-representational and non-conceptual nature (Josipovic, 2019; Krägeloh, 2018). However, theoretical and neuroscientific investigations attempt to dispel confusion about the experience of nonduality by drawing distinctions between the spontaneous realization of nondual awareness in its pure form, and other experiences of nonduality that still contain mental content and are realized through reflection (Josipovic, 2010; 2014; 2019). Berman and Stevens (2015) found evidence to suggest that nondual awareness during meditation has distinct EEG markers compared to those markers found during meditation practice in general. Additionally, some scales have been created to measure aspects of nondual experiences that still contain mental content and remain useful in understanding how nonduality affects cognitive and affective features of experience (Hanley et al., 2018; Krägeloh, 2018; Mills et al., 2018). Aspects of nonduality can still benefit well-being, even if realized after reflection or guidance (Blackstone, 2015), and previous work has investigated nonduality using self-report measures (Hanley et al., 2018).

The Nondual Awareness Dimensional Assessment (Hanley et al., 2018) contains items that describe experiences with nondual features, such as merging of self and environment. It is important to note that the non-conceptual, non-reflective form of nondual awareness mentioned above is not necessarily captured in the Nondual Awareness Dimensional Assessment. However, the scale provides a way to measure features of nondual experience that may or may not contain mental content.

Nondual awareness contains properties that are often discussed in the context of meditation and contemplative traditions, such as emptiness, unity, being, luminosity, and bliss, among others (Josipovic, 2019). These components relate to each other in important ways, for instance, as boundaries between subject-object dissolve, a unity among all things presents itself. This could manifest as an understanding of the sameness of self and others, individual and cosmos, or person and present moment. Although it may be inconclusive whether an individual experiences pure nondual awareness, experiences containing nondual features are often illuminating and blissful, and demonstrate the psychological and spiritual benefits of nonduality generally (Blackstone, 2015; Hanley et al., 2018). To put another way, one’s sense of reality is reshaped, and this change in perception and understanding facilitates a sense of well-being (Blackstone, 2015; Dorjee, 2016). Indeed, Hanley et al. (2018) found that trait measures of the experience of nondual awareness predicted both psychological and subjective well-being.

Although typically associated with meditation, there is some consensus that nondual experiences may occur in other relevant contexts, beyond that of meditation (Blackstone, 2015; Hanley et al., 2018). Certain dimensions of flow, such as the loss of self-consciousness, the merging of action-awareness, and the autotelic experience, suggest that some aspects of nondual awareness may underlie the psychological components described during flow states. According to Josipovic (2019), nondual awareness is an underlying awareness in all conscious experiences, even if left unrealized. It could be that flow states tap into or uncover portions of this nondual awareness, revealing nondual features of experience to the individual. Realizing nonduality holds great therapeutic implications as the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual aspects of our existence begin to merge (Blackstone, 2015). The subtle sensing abilities used to tune into our emotions and perceptions become honed as we become simultaneously grounded in the present moment and expand this unified experience beyond our own consciousness and extend it towards our relationships with others (Blackstone, 2015). Nondual experience can regulate emotions by alleviating self-focused perceptions, creating more openness within the body and mind, and thus allowing for the transformation of the subject-object boundaries to take place. Given the unifying aspects of the flow state, such as the merging of actions with awareness, flow may facilitate emotion regulation and lead to well-being by cultivating nondual experiences. With subject and object no longer separate, emotions may be channeled through our engagement with an activity. Removing boundaries between self and object is different than ignoring the self entirely, as the latter might prohibit the person from processing emotions at all, such as in avoidance coping (Roth & Cohen, 1986; Sheppes & Meiran, 2007, 2008). By experiencing some features of nondual awareness, the self becomes integrated in such a way that would allow emotions to still be processed, while removing the ordinary self-focus that would otherwise increase the difficulty of emotional processing.

Although many types of activities can induce the flow state, sports and professional athletes have been the primary focus of past investigations (Connolly & Tenenbaum, 2010; Jackson et al., 2001; Jackson & Marsh, 1996). Previous work has expanded upon this by validating the measure of the flow state in musical performances (Fritz & Avsec, 2007; Wrigley & Emmerson, 2011). However, one study examining orchestra students found that immediately following their performance exam, most students did not report being absorbed or enjoying their performance experience, most likely due to evaluative pressure (Wrigley & Emmerson, 2011). The delicate challenge-skill balance of flow experiences suggests that high pressure situations may hinder performers’ ability to transition into the flow state. For this reason, more research is needed to capture a diverse range of activities and skill levels that may investigate nonduality in a context beyond meditation. This would allow for the examination of flow and nondual experiences in an ordinary (i.e., not during a performance) setting.

The present study aimed to examine if flow state experiences are associated with increased positive and decreased negative emotion in the short-term, and positively associated with psychological and subjective well-being in the longer-term. We hypothesize that the experience of nonduality, during which the distinction between subject and object disappear, mediates the relationship between flow states and well-being. To clarify, the current study is mainly concerned with experiences of nonduality and not necessarily pure nondual awareness.