Bare attention, dereification, and meta-awareness in mindfulness

Abstract

Phenomenology has recently been invoked in a number of publications on mindfulness and other forms of meditation, attempting to portray phenomenology as a form of mindfulness, that is, as a kind of meditative technique or practice, the aim of which is to carefully attend to present moment experience. While some phenomenologists have disputed this identification, this chapter addresses a different issue. Rather than focusing on mindfulness and phenomenology together, qua “first-person methods” that might be compared, contrasted, or combined, this chapter focuses on some of the underlying assumptions and theoretical commitments of the contemporary mindfulness movement, setting aside other forms of meditation, and raises some critical questions, such as: What are the main ideas informing contemporary mindfulness, and should they be accepted, particularly by phenomenologists? In particular, this chapter questions the way in which experience and the mind-world relation are being conceived in the context of mindfulness, as these are topics about which phenomenology has a great deal to say.