Four Levels of Mindfulness
Who we are today was shaped by our past. The imprints of past experiences exert a powerful influence on our emotional reactions and behavior in the present. Usually, we are not even aware of their effect. Our daily life usually consists of mindless, automatic behaviors driven by unconscious conditioning. Unconscious conditioning is like a collection of invisible programs. These programs were set in motion, often long ago, by conscious experiences. Our reaction to those experiences – our thoughts, emotions, speech, and actions- may have been appropriate at that time. The problem is they have become programmed patterns, submerged in the unconscious, that don’t change. They lie dormant until they’re triggered by something in the present. When that happens, we often get so focused on the triggering event and our own emotions that these unconscious programs don’t take in any new information about the current situation. And our spontaneous reactions come from those original programs.
The practice of mindfulness works because it provides new information to these programs. But how much reprogramming happens depends on our degree of mindfulness. Mindfulness has these different levels of application.
Level One:
At the most basic level, mindfulness is simply about moderating behavior. Usually, several situations in daily life trigger our programmed patterns of behavior. Without mindfulness, we react emotionally instead of responding rationally and intentionally – sometimes creating problems for us and others. With a basic level of mindfulness, we are calm and do not react as spontaneously, and do not get distracted by our own emotions. Mindfully acknowledging our emotions and taking responsibility for our reactions lets us recognize more options, choose wiser responses, and take control of our behavior. Awareness in the present moment allows us to slow down and change our behavior, but it doesn’t make any permanent changes. The next time we are in a similar situation, we’ll behave in the same automatic, reactive way – unless we are mindful once again.
The magic of mindfulness – its power to transform you as a person – only starts working when we move beyond the first level.
Level Two:
At the second level, by maintaining more powerful mindfulness for longer periods in daily life, we become less reactive and more intentionally present. The magic of mindfulness, at this level, is used by therapists to treat all kinds of emotional and behavioral problems such as stress, anger, phobias, compulsive behaviors, eating disorders, addiction, and depression. This magic happens because we can observe ourselves more closely and consistently. Due to this the unconscious mind that stores these unhelpful patterns receives more contextually relevant information and decides against triggering a pre-programmed response. This enables reprogramming at the deepest levels of consciousness. This ‘magic’ of mindfulness is what produces extraordinary spiritual and psychological transformations. In daily life, even when we’re mindful of every moment, unskillful conditioning can only get reprogrammed when something triggers it.
Level Three:
The third level entails reprogramming the deep conditioning that has shaped our personality and only occurs in meditation. Mindfulness in formal mediation helps dissolve those unconscious behaviors or patterns even if those are not triggered. This results in the deep cleansing of programs that are stored in the unconscious mind but drive a wide range of reactive behaviors that would otherwise require multiple triggering events. The reprogramming that happens in meditation transforms the way we think, feel, and act in more radical and broadly effective ways. Therefore, the application of mindfulness in meditation can rapidly accomplish much more than ever could by the piecemeal process of confronting conditioning in daily life.
Level Four:
The fourth level is the radical reconditioning of the innate tendencies that create all our suffering and only occur through Insight Experience. At this level mindfulness radically reprograms our deepest misconceptions about the nature of reality, and about who and what we are. Our innate programming, tells us we’re separate selves in a world of other people and objects, and that our suffering and happiness depend on external circumstances. As we practice mindfulness through meditation, we see the thoughts, feelings, and memories more objectively to be constantly changing and impersonal. These are Insight experiences. When mindfulness allows them to sink in on an experiential level, it profoundly reprograms our intuitive view of reality, wonderfully transforming a person.
If we believe we’re separate selves who need certain external things to be happy, we will spontaneously act out of that territorial feeling, causing harm to ourselves and others. But when we let go of our self-centeredness, we automatically act more objectively, for the good of everybody in each situation. Then we will have discovered the true source of happiness and the end of suffering. This is how mindfulness overcomes sorrow and grief and brings release from all suffering.
Source
Excerpted from the book (S2) - “The Mind Illuminated” by Culadasa