Explorations of mind-wandering in Ljubljana

 Last week, I taught at the TECT (Training Embodied Critical Thinking) summer school, which this year took place in Ljubljana (Slovenia). Just like last year's summer school in Iceland, it was a treat to be there. What is cool about this summer school is that it is a very interdisciplinary place where students with backgrounds ranging from architecture and design to philosophy to neuroscience to artificial intelligence get together to investigate the mind and experience. This investigation is very much grounded in the body and uses techniques such as microphenomenology, thinking at the edge, and exploring the mind through meditation.

During the summer school, I was co-teaching the track on meditation with colleagues Urban Kordes and Toma Strle, and we alternated periods of meditation with a sharing of experience during this meditation to reach a better understanding of mind-wandering. During this track, we started by practising meditation, before everyone introduced themselves, with the reasoning that by practising meditation together, you get to know each other much better than by just sharing your biography. This was proven to be indeed the case, because at the end of the week, the group naturally started to feel very connected to each other during the meditation practices, wanting to hold hands in their imagination.

Probably quite critical in this process was a mid-week excursion to explore some of the beautiful nature of Slovenia, where we wandered around in a park with beautiful caves, springs and forest. We practiced among other things a "depth walk", in which we walked around in the environment with a companion, and traced a path driven by paying attention to subtle internal cues, while at the same time we verbalized what we noticed. It is amazing how much more you notice when you walk like this! Suddenly becoming aware of angular shapes in the natural environment, the springy nature of the ground, or the play of the light. It was also very interesting to notice how this natural environment shifted our thinking patterns.

Now back to our meditation course, exploring mind-wandering in the environment of the city, we ended up with very deep discussions about what is mind-wandering, with probably the most fascinating moment being a "mind-wandering meditation", where we asked people to mind-wander, instead of meditating, and suddenly all the thoughts were gone! We also deeply went into questions of why we mind-wander, whether there is agency in mind-wandering, and how mind-wandering compares to daydreaming and other mental processes. One interesting insight that came was of the parallels between wandering the city, and wandering in our own mind in meditation, and how good that feels when we can simply wander in a non-sticky way, which is the true definition of mind-wandering according to Kalina Christoff and Zach Irving. Yet, it is not so easy to get there, but I think the practices we did during the summer school helped us to tune into that.

This brings me to the point of other practices we did during the summer school: apart from my teaching about mind-wandering and meditation, I also taught movement practices, in which we explored the body through different kinds of dance movement, to tune better into our bodies. Not only was that a great way to start a long day of discussions and thinking, but it also was so cool to bring my dance experience into work at an academic context.

In a way, the summer school was like a retreat, where I got to connect back to my embodied experience, ask big questions about my research and life in general. This is quite in line with the next #lojongchallenge slogan, number 43, which says "observe the two, even at the risk of your life". Basically the two refer here to commitments of the Buddhist teachings in general and the Lojong teachings in particular. In this case, for me the most important lesson is to not forget about the importance of and the power of meditation and tuning into experience, rather than being occupied with things that are visible from the outside, but do not lead to transformation. I myself find it particularly difficult to spend more time on meditation when I have an endless todo list (so this makes it great to have a summer school where you meditate for your job!). And yet, when I practise, I notice just how much sanity it yields, and what better way to study mind-wandering than to observe your own mind... 

How Iceland made me lose my computer but find a way to think through movement and dance

In the past week I attended a summer school on embodied critical thinking, which is part of an Erasmus project in which I am a member. It was a remarkable experience, in which I found new ways to connect the part of myself that is a dancer with the part of myself that is an academic. Moreover, it was my first travel outside the country since Covid-19 hit. The summer school took place in the beautiful country of Iceland, a place where I had never been before. The nature and culture of Iceland were awe-inspiring, which very much complemented the power of the summer school. So what is embodied critical thinking? 

This is a method used--Thinking at the Edge--was developed by a philosopher by the name of Eugene Gendlin, who felt that thinking should not just be in the head but also make use of the wisdom of the body. This is probably something we all use to some extent--when we have a "gut feeling"--but we are never too conscious of it. In thinking at the Edge, you bring your attention to it, and you take the time and space to explore what your body has to say. By doing this, you can often find surprising things. I think the reason it's called "critical thinking" is that it does not take the meaning of concepts as a given, but instead invites you to further explore what concepts may have as hidden meanings, and to inform them with your life experiences to find new connections. An important question that is often being asked is "is there more?", and this is particularly asked when you observe a bodily reaction. As such, the practice demands a lot of tuning into the body. Thinking at the edge consists of a series of 12 steps-exercises if you will, that allow you to investigate the topic you want to think about from many different angles and in many different ways. A very important concept is the "felt sense", which is the feeling in your body of you consider the thing you are thinking about. Rather than paying attention to whether the words are intellectually "correct", one asks whether the words evoke the right feeling, or image. Because of the focus on imagery, there is a possibility to explore new meanings of the topic we are thinking about. This is further expanded on by going over your notes again and again to deepen your understanding.

In my case, I chose to focus on the topic of what embodied critical thinking is and how we can understand it from a cognitive perspective. Rather than going straight into conceptual thinking, the process allowed me to investigate the feeling dimension of this question, which was very interesting and surprising (one of the sentences I wrote, for example, is "the fabric of the spiderweb is space"). A lot of work is done with a partner, who listens to you (usually for luxurious amounts of time, such as 30-40 minutes) and helps you clarify your thinking, but also brings your attention to the bodily dimension. For example, they may say that they noticed that you really started to physically connect to and make lots of gestures when you came to a particular point. To facilitate this process, there was lots of time for silence, and an absence of judgment. The week started even with the announcement that we did not need to feel like we needed to produce something in this time. To further facilitate this, we were also encouraged to do a lot of writing on paper, journalling and carefully writing down what our partner said, and to let go of our computer (more about that in a little bit). I helped out a bit by guiding some movement exercises to help people connect their body and literally dance with their ideas. It was such a gift to be in this caring and spacious environment for a week!

watching the view at the Blue Lagoon site (the blue comes from the silica in the water). Picture by Dorothe Bach)

On top of the exercises from the twelve-step process we went through, we also had various excursions in which we connected to the magnificent nature of Iceland. During my bicycle tour on the first day, I learnt that Iceland is called the land of fire and ice, and its landscapes are largely shaped by volcanic activity. This roughness and wildness yields a very dramatic and awe-inspiring landscape, which helped me to drop the self-focus a bit and instead just be. Moreover, the rocks and volcanoes just have so much space! A further daily connection to nature was provided by the hot springs--just like the Icelandic people I went to the hot pools every day (water comes up right from the ground and is then captured in pools that are spread all across the city of Reykjavik where we stayed). I feel that as you go in the water at the various temperatures (switching between hot and cold baths) it is such a good way to connect to your body and feel what it needs.

being in awe with the volcano behind me (picture by Dorothe Bach)

Now the disconnection from my usual "heady" state in which I am on my computer all the time was further facilitated by an event on the first day, when I was guiding a movement exercise on the beach. We found a beautiful place with lots of rocks to stand on and some grassy patches, and move to the sounds of the wind and the water. I had found a lovely grassy patch to put my laptop bag on while I was guiding the exercise. At the end of the exercise I returned to my back, only to find it standing in a puddle of water, as the tide had been rising while I was--happily unaware--guiding the exercise, standing on a nearby rock. Obviously there was no way I could have any chance at using my computer, since i had to let it dry for at least two days (as I found out from a computer store where I went the next day). And I am writing this on a new computer since sadly my computer never woke up again. The whole episode was a beautiful lesson though, because it made me realize I could actually function without a computer for a little while (especially since a colleague kindly allowed me to use hers for some meetings I needed to do). I was also stunned at my own reaction, which never was one of fear or panic, but simply just ready to go with whatever was. The environment was that spacious! (especially after a few days of vacation that I took in Iceland before the summer school, and especially realizing that an injury is so mch worse).

the place on the coast where I held my movement exercise and my laptop drowned

The last, and very important, lesson from the summer school was that there is a way to bring movement more explicitly into my academic life, and that I have something to offer there. As we went through the twelve-step Thinking at the Edge process, my partner made me realize that expressing through movement and dance, and at the same time being in the academy, is a unique gift I have, which may be of benefit to enrich people's thinking but also strengthen their resilience. So while I started with a project on the cognitive effect of thinking at the edge, I ended up with important realizations about my life and ideas for how to redirect it to bring my dancing and my academic work closer together--a process I started many years ago with Edan Gorlicki in his Unblocked Project.

Dancing into the new year

As in several previous years, I spent the new year's eve at a moving meditation retreat, this time somehow as one of its facilitators. The latter fact also filled me with quite a bit of trepidation because I definitely did not feel ready to do this. But of course that is a great thing to dance with as well, because the idea of moving meditation is to dance with your habits. So what is moving meditation? Why move during your meditation? Let me give a try explaining a little.

image from Aarhus--on the way to the retreat venue

Moving meditation is a form of meditation in which you don't sit still while meditating, but instead you a moving. Moving can take place individually, but also in a dyad, or in a larger group. Just like sitting meditation can move through phases from being focused on an object, to simply being aware of everything, to letting go of even the idea of meditation, so can moving meditation. If you pay attention to it, you will find that there is always movement in your body, and instead of remaining silent you can just let this flow and move the body where it decides to go. And just like you have habits of thought that keep coming back, you also have habits of movement that you keep rolling back into when there is music on. When you become aware of these habits, you suddenly have the choice to not follow these habits and to instead take a different path. Then there is suddenly a lot more freedom! During the retreat I gave the participants a brief introduction to ballet movements as a way to expand their movement vocabulary. During the music, the meditators could then use these movements as well to follow the natural flow of the body.

What is interesting is that movements can be a different way to listen into our mind and our ideas and the external world. When we go into auto-pilot, we can become quite bored during moving meditation, but if instead we just flow what is, there is always inspiration, and there is always something happening. It is quite a wonderful exercise in just letting the movement and meditation arise out of itself. I found that I did not need to be scared about leading the retreat, because when I was simply there to listen, the retreat magically emerged out of itself.

In addition to the general process of moving meditation, we also went through a special new year's process, in which we first thought about what habit we wanted to dance a lovingly goodbye to, and what we wanted to welcome in the new year. We then entered into silence for a day or so (until new year's eve). During the silent period, we enacted the process of being born: from the appearance of matter out of space, to simple single-cell animals such as amoeba, to more complex animals that can crawl, all the way to elegant swans and birds, and finally to humans. While it may sound silly, this whole process of giving birth metaphorically is a wonderful way to reach a state of wonderment about life, and to give space to new ideas and new habits to arise for the new year. I mostly worked with the idea that I would like to simplify my life (I am also starting to work with the Simple Living calendar, the Simpel leven agenda in Dutch). Over time, the insight emerged that maybe I should plan more time to simply sit quietly with my project and listen to what project can dissolve to give more space to other projects.

A final remarkable thing about moving meditation is that it is a very beautiful way to be with other people, because we all practise being together in a very non-judgmental way. It was so moving to see everyone dancing together on New Year's eve: everyone with their own unique moves, no-one being ignored, everyone sharing joy and wonder with one another. These qualities are also cultivated in the moving meditation practices, for example a practice in which we listen into each other's being and use that to move together. As we listen into each other, we become more and more open to the unique texture of every individual, and their unique beauty. I hope that I will be able to keep some of that non-judgmentalness and wonder in the new year!

Where meditation meets reasoning: analytical meditation

Over the course of the last two years or so I have been studying, with several American colleagues, the practices of monastic debate and analytical meditation. As I am writing this I am once again in India for that study. It is a tremendous gift to be able to spend time in India working with a fantastic group of monks in the context of my work. During this visit, we had a short panel at the monastery on analytical meditation in which I shared some words about how we measure the brain with EEG, but most interestingly, two very bright monastic scholars shared textual and practical information about analytical meditation and debate. To ensure that I do not forget it, I decided to share it here on my blog (doing my best not to misrepresent what I have heard).

While analytical meditation (Tib. che gom) can be traced back to the historical Buddha (described for example in the King of Concentration sutra), and even Hindu saints before that time, it really became popular with the Buddhist saint Tsongkhapa. Tsongkhapa was the founder of the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism which has a strong focus on study and reasoning. Apparently there is also the criticism from other schools in Tibetan Buddhism that say that analytical meditation is just fake meditation invented by Tsongkhapa. Analytical meditation is complemented by stabilizing meditation, in which the mind is placed on an object and tries to stay there without moving. This stabilizing meditation is more well-known in the West, where meditating on the breath is a quite popular component of many mindfulness courses and interventions. However, it is said that such calm abiding does not really help to transform suffering in the long term--it can only give calm in the short term. Analytical meditation seeks to investigate the true causes of phenomena and thereby can lead to wisdom and new insight into the nature of phenomena.

However, neither type of meditation can exist without the other ones. Without stabilizing meditation, the analytical meditation cannot really thoroughly accomplished, because the mind is just too wild. Without analytical meditation, stabilizing meditation is just a brief respite from our crazy monkey mind (if we manage to get it quiet). Also interesting: in this tradition, meditation is referred to as familiarization (see also Dreyfus (2015) for an excellent discussion)--meditation is becoming thoroughly familiar with its object (such as the breath) by bringing your attention to it again and again.

Analytical and stabilizing meditation differ on various dimensions. As I mentioned above, the results of analytical meditation are more stable than the results of stabilizing meditation. While stabilizing meditation is only practised individually, analytical meditation can also be practised in smaller or larger groups, such as in the debates that we have been recording in the lab. While in stabilizing meditation, the body should remain still, in analytical meditation, it can also move (as it does in monastic debate).

This movement dimension is also the feature of analytical meditation that is fascinating to me, given my experience in dance. It seems like a genius way to make meditation palatable to young men in a monastery that have lots of physical energy: meditation in action! Analytical meditation is characterized by a continuous questioning of the topic at hand, looking at it from all directions and asking "why" and "how"? These questions then allow the practitioner to become more familiar with the topic at hand (traditional topics include concepts such as impermanence and interdependence) by thoroughly investigating it. Debating in the physical way that is used in the monastery (see this clip for an example makes it more interesting than just sitting down. In addition, the monks say that standing makes your thinking quicker and more clear. It brings all the senses together. Through a repeated investigation of concepts like impermanence, but also negative emotions like anger, slowly your mental patterns start to change, such that eventually thoughts of impermanence or patience come up more automatically in daily life, and in situations where you are about to become angry.

It seems to me that analytical meditation is worthy of more attention by contemplative neuroscientists. We have begun to do the first EEG studies and behavioral experiments. This surely is a slow process, frought with dangers of misunderstanding, but I think it is well worth our while. It is important not only because of potential applications in education or in therapeutic interventions to manage maladaptive thought patterns, but surely also because there is so much interest in science in the monastic community as well. I hope to be able to share some preliminary results in this space in the near future.

Moving your meditation - exploring meditating while moving

During new year's eve, I attended a Moving Meditation retreat. As a dancer and meditator myself, it was quite interesting to bring those two together. So what is moving meditation? In many forms of meditation you focus on an object, frequently the breath. Moving meditation is similar, but now the object of your focus is the movement. We mostly danced with music, and the "game" was to be aware where in your body a movement arose, to just let it happen, and not lose focus. Whenever you lost focus, you could stand still, observe, and start to move again, with awareness. What I found interesting was that this movement led to a very fluid state. I had practised modern dance techniques before in which you are also taught to let the movement arise from the body, without commentary, everything is good (e.g., movement research by Edan Gorlicki). What was different in this case was the emphasis on awareness--using the movement as an anchor of your attention.

What was also different from previous classes I have done was the use of relational techniques. We spent a decent amount of time dancing together--feeling the movement not just of ourselves but also of the others. It may well be a very interesting way to cultivate empathy and awareness of how we relate to others. I found it also allowed me to develop a sense of non-judgmentalness towards people, because we practiced interacting with other people from within the space of meditation. In this meditation, I could see my reactions and judgments arise, but I was reminded that I could simply let them dissolve again as well.

Now what are the effects of these practices? I think movement meditation is a beautiful way to bring movement into meditation, and meditation into movement. Very useful for those like me, who cannot sit still. it also opened the door for me to bring meditation in other dance I do, like ballet. Such cases are substantially more difficult, because there is a lot more outward focus and direction by others, but it is a nice challenge. More generally, I feel that movement meditation can make it easier to bring the awareness of meditation into daily life because most of our daily life we're not sitting on a cushion, but moving about.