Does mindfulness meditation lead to awakening?
There are common misconceptions concerning mindfulness meditation, what it even is and whether it leads to awakening or not. I've spent some years doing mindfulness meditation and would like to reflect on this topic based on some research papers to untangle this knot. I'll start with two sources. One is a seminal paper by Judson A. Brewer et al., "Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity."[1] And another is a post by Gary Weber, "mindfulness meditation - religious vs secular - does it work? - new research"[2]. Jud's paper discusses the Default Mode Network (DMN) which is responsible for the building of the image of the "I" and the brain’s self‑referential internal narrative; it can be called the ruminating network. The paper also touches on the Task-Positive Network (TPN) which is responsible for the focused attention; it can be called the tasking network. Deactivation of the DMN is tantamount to deconstruction of the "I" and dissolution of the self-referential internal narrative. To begin with, what is a good scientific indicator of awakening? According to Jud's paper we can see that experienced meditators have deactivated the DMN and are established in the TPN. They were in that state even between runs of different meditations (for some time). So if the brain during idle moments is metastable in the TPN and not in the DMN (even without meditation) it correlates with awakening (it does not mean it causes it). That correlation is enough for the purposes of this post. Jud's paper clearly shows that the Theravada monks achieved deactivation of the DMN by what the researchers call in the paper "mindfulness meditation". It describes three methods of mindfulness meditation: breathing meditation[3], Choiceless Awareness[4] (the term coined by Krishnamurti Jiddu) and loving-kindness (metta) meditation[5]. Whereas Gary's post references Johns Hopkins meta-research which ends up with the conclusion that, "
