This paper proposes a third meditation-category—automatic self-transcending— to extend the dichotomy of focused attention and open monitoring proposed by Lutz. Automaticself-transcending includes techniques designed to transcend their own activity. This contrasts with focused attention, which keeps attention focused on an object; and open monitoring, which keeps attention involved in the monitoring process. Each category was assigned EEG bands, based on reported brain patterns during mental tasks, and meditations were categorized based on their reported EEG. Focused attention, characterized by beta/gamma activity, (...) included meditations from Tibetan Buddhist, Buddhist, and Chinese traditions. Open monitoring, characterized by theta activity, included meditations from Buddhist, Chinese, and Vedic traditions. Automaticself-transcending, characterized by alpha1 activity, included meditations from Vedic and Chinese traditions. Between categories, the included meditations differed in focus, subject/object relation, and procedures. These findings shed light on the common mistake of averaging meditations together to determine mechanisms or clinical effects. (shrink)

Published in two parts, the present article addresses whether self-awareness is necessarily involved in each of the six kinds of consciousness that The Oxford English Dictionary identifies under the word consciousness. Part I inquires into how, if at all, self-awareness enters consciousness1: a cognitive relation between people in which they have joint and mutual cognizance; consciousness2: a psychological process of conceiving of oneself in certain sorts of respects on a firsthand evidentiary basis; and consciousness3: being occurrently aware of anything at (...) all, including nonexistent particulars. An instance of consciousness1 may or may not have a reflexive object, but it will perforce include both inner awareness and awareness of oneself as an object of the other’s awareness. Consciousness2 requires self-awareness in the forms of witnessing or having witnessed potential evidence about oneself, inner awareness of this witnessing when it occurred, inner awareness and self-awareness as involved in remembering having witnessed that evidence, occurrent awareness of features of one’s character or personality, and bringing self-witnessed evidence to bear in judging of the latter. In contrast, consciousness3, which in a particular instance may be an occurrent self-awareness, need not involve any self-awareness at all. (shrink)