The Science of Enlightenment: How Meditation Works

you can dramatically extend life—not by multiplying the number of your years, but by expanding the fullness of your moments.

At first, meditation requires a lot of effort. You have to think about what you’re doing, and you can only get in a meditative state while sitting still, perhaps with your eyes closed. But at some point, the skill becomes second nature. You can attend to the business of life and still be in a meditative state just like you can listen to the radio w

Concentration + Sensory clarity + Equanimity + Time = Insight + Purification

The basic mantra of mindfulness is simple: trackable implies tractable.

Unblocking the natural flow of this subtle mental activity nurtures intuition, wisdom, and creativity. But you can’t unblock it until you can detect it. Parsing thought into image and talk opens the door for that possibility.

The clarity aspect of mindfulness practice has several facets. One facet of clarity is discrimination skill, the ability to separate. Another aspect of clarity is detection skill, the ability to pick up on what’s subtle.

Ordinary experience, when greeted with concentration, clarity, and equanimity catalyzes a process of insight and purification which culminates in the ability to have complete experiences whenever you want.

Another book is called the Cloud of Unknowing, by an anonymous fourteenth-century English author, which gives a very beautiful poetic description of the meditative process. Finally, there are the writings of Meister Eckhart, a thirteenth-century Dominican. Eckhart’s writings went unnoticed for many centuries, but he is now appreciated as among the

If we develop an ability to discern the components of the experience, we can begin to keep track of what part is thought and what part is feeling.