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New Ideas in Psychology 30 (2012) 201–211

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New Ideas in Psychology

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Intimate distances: William James’ introspection, Buddhist mindfulness,and experiential inquiryq

Steven Stanley*

School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3WT, UK

Keywords:William JamesBuddhismMindfulnessIntrospectionConsciousnessEmbodimentSelfSelflessness

q In tribute to Francisco Varela (see 2001) on thehis death.* Tel.: þ44 (0)29 2087 4853; fax: þ44 (0)29 2087

E-mail address: stanleys1@cardiff.ac.uk.

0732-118X/$ – see front matter � 2011 Elsevier Ltddoi:10.1016/j.newideapsych.2011.10.001

a b s t r a c t

The recent and growing interest in ‘mindfulness’ and ‘mindfulness meditation’ acrossdisciplines in the West presents us with a unique opportunity to reconsider whetherBuddhism has anything to offer our contemporary psychological investigations. I arguethat the Buddhist-inspired practice of mindfulness has potentially profound implica-tions for the ways in which we conduct our investigations as psychologists, and that, asa style of experiential inquiry, it has at least one Western antecedent in the earlyintrospectionist method of William James. Both are practices of becoming aware ofexperience; and paradoxically becoming intimately distant with our experience.I present a non-dualistic approach in which introspection and mindfulness are seen notonly as psychological but also as social practices, operating simultaneously at theboundary of the individual/inner and social/outer, collapsing such distinctions inpractice, and radically undermining the distinction between self and other. While thereare similarities between James’ practice of introspection and mindfulness, there arealso differences, and I suggest that they should not be easily conflated. Clarifying theirrelationship should be helpful, not only in distinguishing them from one another, butalso in pointing to how mindfulness might allow a broader application than James’introspection once did.

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1. Introduction

In the early years of the twentieth century, AnagarikaDharmapala – a Sinhalese Buddhist monk, on a tour ofthe United States – is said to have attended a lecture byWilliam James at Harvard University. During the lecture,James apparently became aware of the monk, dressed ina distinctive yellow toga, sitting in the audience. “Takemy chair,” James said, “and I shall sit with my students.You are better equipped to lecture on psychology thanI am.” Dharmapala obliged and gave a short account ofBuddhist teachings, after which James turned to his

tenth anniversary of

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students and remarked, “This is the psychology every-body will be studying twenty-five years from now”

(adapted from Sangharakshita, 1952, p. 78). One hundredyears on, it appears James’ prediction never came true. Ithas taken much longer for academics in the mainstreamof Western Psychology to begin to share James’ open-mindedness towards Buddhist ideas, let alone to treatthem as a valid ‘Psychology’. But the recent and growinginterest in ‘mindfulness’ and ‘mindfulness meditation’across disciplines in the West presents us with a uniqueopportunity to reconsider whether Buddhism hasanything to offer our contemporary psychologicalinvestigations.

I argue that the Buddhist-inspired practice of mindful-ness has potentially profound implications for the ways inwhich we conduct our investigations as psychologists, andthat, as a style of experiential inquiry, it has at least one

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Western antecedent in the early introspectionist method ofWilliam James. Both are practices of becoming aware ofexperience; and paradoxically becoming intimately distantwith our experience. I seek to present a non-dualisticapproach in which introspection and mindfulness areseen not only as psychological but also as social practices,operating simultaneously at the boundary of the indi-vidual/inner and social/outer, collapsing such distinctionsin practice, and radically undermining the distinctionbetween self and other – especially in the case of mind-fulness practice.

While there are similarities between James’ practice ofintrospection and mindfulness, there are also differences,and I suggest that they should not be easily conflated.Clarifying their relationship should be helpful, not only indistinguishing them from one another, but also in pointingto howmindfulness might allow a broader application thanJames’ introspection once did.

I will begin with a discussion of definitions of mindful-ness in Buddhism and psychology, and why James is rele-vant to our investigations.

2 Social psychologists maybe more familiar with the experimentalsocial cognitive research on mindfulness by Langer (1989) and colleagues.Langer’s is a non-Buddhist, non-meditative understanding of mindful-ness. This mindfulness is a style of information processing involving thecreation of new conceptual distinctions and categories, when we respondto what is happening in the present moment, rather than the past. Thereare clear similarities with early Buddhist definitions of mindfulness,perhaps more than contemporary psychological definitions (e.g. Kabat-

2. Defining mindfulness: Buddhist and psychologicalorientations

While mindfulness may appear to be a ‘new’ idea inPsychology, it actually has its roots in ancient Indianculture, around 2,500 years ago. I am using the term‘mindfulness’ as an English translation of the Pali word sati(Rhys-Davids, 1890)1; Pali being the early Indian languageused to document the teachings of the historical Buddha,Mr. Gotama (Bodhi, 2005). Sati is one of the most difficultPali words to translate and there has been much debateabout its meaning alongside related terms such as attention(manisakara), clear comprehension (sampajāna) andconsciousness (viññāṇa) (see Bodhi, 2011). For some,mindfulness is a concept, which denotes non-conceptualawareness, and therefore defies definition (Gunaratana,2002). This poses unique difficulties for academicresearch on mindfulness, which requires it to be ‘grasped’or captured by language.

Sati might be better translated as an ‘awareness’ whichis both embodied and feelingful, but even this is vaguecompared to the often specific meanings given in thePali Canon (Peacock, 2008). The early definition of satipreserved its recollective and ethical dimensions; the verbform sarati being translated as remembering or recollecting(Rhys-Davids, 1890, p. 52, pp. 58–59). In being mindful, weare remembering to bring to mind “what is otherwise tooeasily forgotten: the present moment” (An�alayo, 2003,p. 48). Mindfulness involves “recollection of the presentmoment, sustained awareness of what is happening to usand within us on each occasion of experience” (Bodhi,2005, p. 262). It is a ‘lucid awareness’ of whatever ishappening momentarily (Bodhi, 2011). We will bring morespecificity to this definition later in the discussion by

1 Incidentally, in 1894/1895 James invited the British Pali scholarThomas William Rhys-Davids to lecture at Harvard on ‘Buddhism: ItsHistory and Literatures’.

describing how a mindful orientation is cultivated throughmeditation practice.2

“Right” or ethical mindfulness (samma sati) is just oneelement of the Buddhist path and one of the seven factors ofawakening. However, when taken out of this context,mindfulness risks becoming de-ethicised and understoodpurely as a technique (Cohen, 2010; Rosenbaum, 2009). AsBuddhism has started to gain more explicit attention in themainstreamofWestern Psychology– increasingly in the lastsixty years or so – it has tended to be approached asa therapy, to be studied and evaluated using establishedscientific methods, rather than as a religion, or a bona fide‘Psychology’, as James once took it to be. The recent andgrowing interest in mindfulness and mindfulness medita-tion amongst medical practitioners, clinical psychologists,and neuroscientists is a case in point (see Didonna, 2009). Inturn, mindfulness meditation is more likely to beapproached by academic psychologists as an object ofstudy – i.e. state, trait or experimental condition – ratherthan as a practice for them to do themselves (Baer, 2011).One consequence of the dominant positivist-objectivistscientific orientation towards mindfulness and meditationmight be that we miss the potential experiential insightsderiving from, and producedwithin, such practices.Wewillexplore these below.

At this point, it suffices to say that the historically later,idiosyncratic translation of mindfulness as “bare attention”(Nyanaponika,1965) – alongwith the influence of HumanisticPsychology (Dryden & Still, 2006) –made it possible for a de-ethicised understanding of mindfulness as “awareness andacceptanceofpresentmomentexperience” tobecomepopular(Kabat-Zinn, 2003). Reclaiming the recollective and ethicaldimension of mindfulness potentially allows it to becomea style of experiential inquiry suitable for Psychology, whichshould be rooted in an awareness of the ethical consequencesof our actions (Bradley, 2005). Also, from the presentperspective,wecanbemindfullyaware in thepresentmomentwhile we remember an event from the recent or distant past(e.g. the experience of forgetting a name, see Section 4).

It is helpful to clarify the background to this specific takeonmindfulness. When taken as a historical creation,WesternBuddhism can be understood as a “culture of awakening,”rather than a religion in the Judeo-Christian sense of the term(Batchelor, 1997). To “wake up” existentially involves actingupon four “ennobling” tasks, rather than believing particulartruths. Each person is invited to embrace dukkha (suffering,pain or unsatisfactoriness); let go of craving for things to beotherwise; realise the cessation of dukkha; and cultivate an

Zinn, 2003), but the concepts are not the same and should be treatedas distinct (see Langer & Moldoveanu, 2000). In particular, I am under-standing mindfulness as including awareness of bodily sensations, whichare not addressed in Langer’s definition. It is beyond the scope of thispaper to compare them in detail (see Dryden & Still, 2006).

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eightfold path towards awakening – which involves caringfor oneself and others. Different traditions of Buddhism haveemerged, characterised doctrinally as Theravada, Mahayana,and Vinayana or geographically as Southern, Northern,Eastern and Western (Batchelor, 1994). Sati has been arguedto be present in all of them, although it is only an explicitmeditation practice in Theravada (Southeast Asian), Zen(Japanese) and Chan (Chinese) Buddhism (Depraz, Varela, &Vermersch, 2001). My own specific influence is the earlyBuddhism presented in the Pali Canon (Batchelor, 2010).

Until recently, such traditions have largely been excludedfrom the explicit professional construction of knowledgeabout the mind in the West (Wallace, 2000). When it is dis-played, an interest in Buddhism is likely to be taken asesoteric, deemed irrelevant or obstructive to the seriousworkof science, and confined to popular self-help ormarginal sub-disciplines on the fringes of Psychology (e.g. Fontana, 2003;Wilber, Engler, & Brown, 1986). The history of Psychologyhas, nevertheless, seen some fruitful interactions betweenBuddhism and its more established – but arguably still mar-ginalised – schools, such as Gestalt Psychology, Psychoanal-ysis, Humanistic Psychology, and Existential Phenomenology(see Batchelor, 1983; Dryden & Still, 2006; Fromm, 1960;Safran, 2003). Recently, this interest has been broadened toincludemoremainstreamPsychosomaticMedicine, CognitiveNeuroscience, and Clinical Psychology (illustrated by thepopularity of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) andMindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) programmes;see Didonna, 2009; Grossman et al., 2004). In such work,Buddhism is often ambivalently positioned in relation toreligious and scientific traditions, alternately understood asempirical, rational and scientific, or mystical, intuitive andpre-scientific (McMahan, 2008). The historical roots of thisdual orientation can be found in the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries, particularly in theworkofWilliam James.

3. James, Buddhism & Mindfulness

William James is often identified as the ‘father’ of Amer-ican Psychology and an important figure in PragmatistPhilosophy (Richards, 2010). He is most well known amongstPsychologists for his two volume Principles of Psychology(1890) (henceforth the Principles), which includes classicchapters on consciousness, habit, self and emotion. Jameswas also interested in topics on the fringes of Psychology,including altered states of consciousness, hypnotism, psychicabilities and religious experience. The Varieties of ReligiousExperience (1902; henceforth the Varieties) is still considereda classic in the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. WhileJames’ influence on American Psychology and Philosophy isgenerally appreciated, what is often less appreciated is hisinfluence on Western understandings of Buddhism, espe-cially in the United States (Fields,1992). When reading James,one might easily be reading a contemporary Western

3 See Dryden and Still (2006) and Taylor (1991) on the ‘double-helix’ ormulti-directional influence between James, Humanistic Psychology andBuddhism. Billig (n.d.) argues that James’ use of the ‘stream’ metaphormight have been influenced by the 18th century English philosopherAbraham Tucker.

Buddhist author. And vice versa: when reading contemporaryBuddhist texts, there are echoes of James, not least in refer-ences to the idea of the ‘stream of consciousness’.3

Scott (2000) claims that James shares a common“functionalist” tendency with Buddhist scholars. Heunderstood consciousness as a function, rather than as anentity (see James, 1904/2003). Early Buddhism has a simi-larly ‘pragmatic’ orientation; the Buddha was interested inhow knowledge is constructed (epistemology) rather thanwhat is the case (ontology) (Gombrich, 1996). They alsoshare concerns with consciousness, selflessness andchange (to be considered below). However, Scott does notconsider how James’ introspective method may have hadresonances with the Buddhist meditative practice ofmindfulness. On this point, Dreyfus and Thompson (2007)suggest that both Buddhist and James’ psychologies relyon a common “introspective method” (p. 94), therebyimplying equivalence between mindfulness and intro-spection. But the details of this comparison are notexpanded upon.

4. Consciousness: a social psychological account

The topic of consciousness provides a bridge betweenJames and Buddhism. Increasingly in the last twenty yearsor so, some cognitive (or ‘contemplative’) scientists havebecome interested in consciousness – a topic close toJames’ heart – and discussed methods which may beappropriate for its study (Varela & Shear, 1999; Wallace,2000). Consciousness has been termed “the hardproblem” in cognitive science, partly as a result of thepositivist-empiricist approaches adopted to study it(Varela, 1996), and calls have been made for analyses of“first-person” subjective accounts of experiences, tocomplement the standard “second-person” intersubjectiveand “third-person” objectivist approaches (e.g. neuro-imaging) (Varela & Shear, 1999). Wewill consider examplesof studies at this intersection below. Crucially, conscious-ness only becomes ‘the hard problem’ as a result of themind/behaviour dualism of cognitivism. Costall (2006)argues that cognitive psychology is “mired” in a dualismof mind and behaviour, originating in Watson’s critique ofintrospection. Costall (2006) suggests that behind thisdualism and the project of science itself is a “terror ofsubjectivity” (p. 646). I argue that Western engagementwith Buddhist psychologies, specifically in relation to thestudy of consciousness, would benefit from deeperengagement with some of the epistemological, ontologicaland methodological aspects of mindfulness practice. Toexplore the subjective aspects of introspection and mind-fulness, it is helpful to expand on what is meant by a ‘first-person’ mode of experiential inquiry.

A first-person stance is the explicit production of knowl-edge through personal subjectivity, in which researcher andparticipant positions co-exist in the same person and areinterchangeable. The researcher adopts various styles ofcontemplation, reflection or introspection and producesresearch which works on, and with, their own subjectivity.Some Theology (Augustine), Philosophy (Locke, Hume, Des-cartes), Philosophical Psychology (James), Psychoanalysis(Freud) and Phenomenology (Sartre) is solely or

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predominantly first-person (seeWallace, 2000 for a historicaloverview). First-person studies of consciousness are claimedto be written “from within” or “from the inside out”. Thisinvolves the author performing particular practices andtaking herself as a subject (‘I’) or object (‘me’) of inquiry usinglanguage. For example, some early Psychologists weredescribed as ‘observers’ of their own experiences (Danziger,1990; Kusch, 1995). James (1890) routinely took himself asboth the subject and object of his investigations; reflectingupon his everyday life experiences using a ‘retrospection’ (orremembering of a previous event). We know little about howJames actually conducted his introspections; he gave a fewguidelines in the Principles, his articles, and also in personalcorrespondence (see Shusterman, 2008). From this limitedinformation it appears that introspection shares with mind-fulness a ‘first-person’ stance; in the sense that neitherpractice construct a solid division between ‘observer’ and‘observed’, which is now institutionalised in much academicPsychology (e.g. the rigid hierarchical divide betweenexperimenters and participants in Experimental Psychology).For example, fMRI neuroimaging studies of changes in brainstate as a result of participation in MBSR courses suggest thatmindfulness meditation involves adopting a momentary‘first-person’ awareness rather than a narrative-based ‘third-person’ awareness (Farb et al., 2007; Tagini & Raffone, 2010).Mindfulness seems to focus on the construction of the self inthe present.

A cursory look at the history of Psychology shows howthe “normal psychology of introspection” presupposed byJames (1890, p. 194) – in which the Psychologist could bea commentator on their own experience – apparently neverbecame normal. It does not feature as a valid method incurrent qualitative or quantitative Psychology textbooks.When it is discussed in Psychology texts, it tends to beresigned to the history of the discipline: the methodfeatures in accounts of Psychology’s beginnings.4 Butdespite its alleged ‘death’, Costall (2006) suggests thatintrospection “continues to pose a very awkward problemfor the majority of modern psychologists . How are self-reports . possible?” (pp. 649–650).

Costall takes introspection to be the socially organisedconvention of ‘observing’ our inner states and then‘reporting’ them using language. Mindfulness and intro-spection (along with closely related concepts such asconsciousness, attention and experience) are wordscommonly taken to refer to inner mental processes, expe-rienced during solitary, personal acts such as meditation,contemplation or thinking. Indeed, it is assumed that theterms function to represent such inner private psycholog-ical states of mind. Brock (1991) points to how the“imageless thought controversy” in the early years of thetwentieth century presumes that the object of introspec-tive inquiry is private experience. However, he arguesagainst the idea that introspection is a “strictly private

4 For varying historical accounts of the emergence and development ofintrospection see Boring (1953), Costall (2006), Kroker (2003), Kusch(1995), Lyons (1986), Richards (2010), Wallace (2000). On the manycritiques and defenses of introspection, see Petitmengin and Bitbol(2009), Schwitzgebel (2008), Vermersch (1999).

affair” (p. 102). Instead, our introspective descriptions are“social in origin” and require social relationships, publiccriteria, and the use of language if they are to make sense(see also Voloshinov, 1929/1986). Sharf (1995) similarlycritiques the “rhetoric of experience” displayed withinBuddhist religious discourse. While concepts such asmindfulness are “presumed to designate discrete ‘states ofconsciousness’ experienced by Buddhist practitioners inthe midst of their meditative practice” (p. 231), the lack ofpublic consensus between practitioners belies the notionthat the terms function representatively. Instead, Sharfsuggests they function rhetorically and ideologically, per-forming social functions within specific cultural, historicaland political contexts.

How are we to balance second-person/third-personqualitative studies of consciousness with perspectivesclaiming to be written from the first-person? That is, howdowe respect both the inner and outer integrity of practicessuch as mindfulness and introspection – without reinforc-ing dualistic divisions? As Sharf (2000) acutely points out,as soon as we attempt to define “experience” we situate itin the public sphere, assuming an “objective or third-person perspective” (p. 226). At the same time, third-person objective accounts must be written by living,breathing individuals working in the first-person – orperhaps collaboratively and intersubjectively with othersin the second-person – who in turn have their ownthoughts, memories, and feelings (Varela & Shear, 1999).The present discussion attempts to balance such accounts.

This debate has its roots in Wittgenstein’s (1953)critique of James. Wittgenstein disputed that the meaningof psychological language (e.g. inner state words such as‘anger’) is established directly and introspectively througha correspondence relationship with the inner statesthemselves. Instead, an “‘inner process’ stands in need ofoutward criteria” (p. 129), to be found in language use. Oneway to respond to this debate would be to take a develop-mental perspective, which understands experience,subjectivity and consciousness as social first and foremost,and only later becoming psychological, through a processof “internalization” (Vygotsky, 1978). Instead, I wish tounderstand introspection and mindfulness as metaphor-ical, and to briefly consider the possible functions of themetaphors adopted. This is in line both with James’ (1890)pragmatist orientation and Wittgenstein’s (1953) actionview of language. What I am not arguing, therefore, is thatthe practices of mindfulness and introspection can give usstraightforward access to inner, ‘private’ experience, as ifthe contents of consciousness are immediately and trans-parently available to a person who simply chooses to ‘lookinward’. (Indeed, the very existence of a practice such asmindful awareness training attests to this not being thecase.) Rather, these methods require practice and cultiva-tion, conducted intersubjectively, which require a publiccriteria for them to work successfully. And we can uselanguage as our guide.

5. Metaphors of introspection and mindfulness

It is helpful to clarify the metaphorical basis of intro-spection and mindfulness; not least because it is so easy to

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forget. Much of our talk of our ‘inner states’ has a meta-phorical basis (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), a metaphor beingdefined as “something standing in for something else”(Varela, 2001, p. 266). ‘Introspection’ is part of a particular‘language game’ we inherit from Western history, whichunderstands the mind using an ocular metaphor (Rorty,1979). This is especially evident in the way that James(1890) took introspection for granted as an obviousmethod of inquiry, when giving recommendations for thestudy of “mental states” (p. 183):

Introspective observation is what we have to rely on firstand foremost and always. The word introspection needhardly be defined – it means, of course, the looking intoour own minds and reporting what we there discover.Every one agrees that we there discover states ofconsciousness (p. 185; emphasis in original).

In this classic statement, James conflates the practice of‘looking’ into our minds and ‘reporting’ what we discoveras defining introspection, along with a statement of what isdiscovered during this process.5While he takes the practiceof introspection for granted, andmakes it sound simple andstraightforward, elsewhere James comments that “intro-spection is difficult and fallible; . the difficulty is simply thatof all observation of whatever kind” (p. 191; emphasis inoriginal). This parallelling of internal and external ‘obser-vation’ and the use of the ocular metaphor is present inmany contemporary accounts of introspection, both cele-bratory and critical (Bakan,1954; Boring,1953; Howe,1991;Lyons, 1991).

There is a striking similarity between James’ definitionof introspection and some descriptions of mindfulnessmeditation. In both we find a description of observationaldistancing. One scholar monk describes mindfulness as an“aloof quality of uninvolved, detached observation” ora “detached observational vantage point” which requiresthe meditator to “step back” and become an “unbiasedobserver of one’s subjective involvement and of the entiresituation” (Anālayo, 2003, p. 58). Mindfulness “silentlyobserves, like a spectator at a play, without in any wayinterfering” (Anālayo, 2003). The detachment and dispas-sion advocated in such accounts can imply a distanced orequanimous perspective (see also Bishop et al., 2004, p.232; Emavardhana & Tori, 1997, p. 201; Grossman et al.,2004, p. 36; Pagis, 2010a, 2010b, p. 320). I argue that suchobservational definitions of mindfulness and introspectionare misleading. More helpful are definitions which stressthe intimacy and warmth of a mindful stance, whereby wecome into closer contact with our experience, rather thanbecoming more distanced from it (Fromm, 1960;Petitmengin & Bitbol, 2009; Varela, 1996). Temporally,mindfulness involves firstly coming into closer contact withour experience, becoming more intimately aware of ourexperience, before secondly not identifying with thatexperience as a self (i.e. as ‘I’, ‘me’ or ‘mine’). Experientially,one becomes intimate with experience but also distancedfrom the attachment of a notion of a self (i.e. an ‘observer’

5 Costall (2006) similarly conflates introspection with self-reporting orthe act of giving ‘verbal reports’ using language.

with an inherent, independent existence) who owns thatexperience. Hence, it is a paradoxical orientation of intimatedistance.

This subtle orientation is perhaps best illustrated by anexample. It is taken from James (1890). He beautifullyillustrates his method of introspection directed towards theexperience of forgetting a name.

Suppose we try to recall a forgotten name. The state ofour consciousness is peculiar. There is a gap therein; butno mere gap. It is a gap that is intensely active. A sort ofwraith of the name is in it, beckoning us in a givendirection, making us at moments tingle with the senseof our closeness, and then letting us sink back withoutthe longed-for term. If wrong names are proposed, thissingularly definite gap acts immediately so as to negatethem. They do not fit into this mould. And the gap of oneword does not feel like the gap of another, all empty ofcontent as both might seem necessarily to be whendescribed as gaps . The rhythm of a lost word may bethere without a sound to clothe it; or the evanescentsense of something which is the initial vowel orconsonant may mock us fitfully, without growing moredistinct. Every one must know the tantilising effect ofthe blank rhythm of some forgotten verse, restlesslydancing in one’s mind, striving to be filled out withwords (pp. 251–252).

James would have described this as a ‘retrospection’because he is reporting upon the act of becoming aware ofa prior experience. He displays the simultaneously intimateand distant orientation which also characterises mindful-ness practice: an inquiry is conducted with concern andkindness in which one adopts a position of dispassionatedistancing towards the experiential event being remem-bered. James is concerned with studying the process ofrecalling rather than getting identified with the content ofhis experience. In this case, it concerns the preverbal (orpre-reflective) feeling state of attempting to remembera forgotten name.

Introspective (or “retrospective,” see Wilson, 1991)ways of talking about mindfulness and the process ofbecoming aware are metaphorical because when onecomes into mindful contact with one’s experience, one isnot usually using one’s visual capacity. Many meditationsinvolve closing the eyes. Instead of looking outward toothers, or internally imagining how our bodies mightlook, one inwardly senses (for example) our bodilysensations (e.g. breathing). In Buddhist Psychology, the‘objects’ of mindfulness derive from the full range of thesix “sense bases” including eyes, ears, nose, tongue, bodyand mind (Anālayo, 2003). Mind is a sixth sense, which isdistinct from Western understandings of sensoryperception (Dreyfus & Thompson, 2007). Setting up thefoundations of mindfulness involves becoming awareof our bodily postures, bodily sensations, and bodilyfeelings before noticing the activities of the mind(Anālayo, 2003; Rosenberg & Guy, 1998). Observationaldefinitions of mindfulness are therefore misleading ina fundamental sense: they neglect the extent to whichthe ‘observational’ capacity of mindfulness is confinedonly to practices of visualisation or seeing (e.g.

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visualising images in the mind or seeing events in theworld). I do not include discussion of visualisation prac-tices in the present paper (see Wallace, 1999).

Another central problem of the observational meta-phor is that it sets up a division between subject(observer) and object (observed) too early in the expe-riential process, before that division is constructed in theprocess of experiencing (see Section 10). In James’ (1890)account of introspection, the observer is distanced fromwhat is treated as an object of observation primarily inorder to achieve a scientific objectivity. The principle of“observer independence” is central to the myth ofscientific rationality. Scientific observation (empiricism)should not be dependent upon the subjectivity of theobserver (Wallace, 2000). Indeed, subjectivity has a dis-torting influence upon objectivity and therefore needs tobe minimised or removed from the processes of obser-vation. But James was famously ambivalent about the‘scientific’ status of Psychology, especially as embodied inthe German systematic experimental introspection (seeRichards, 2010).

On the one hand, observer independence is not possiblein mindfulness or introspective practice, because it ispredicated upon the activities of living, breathing individ-uals (Varela & Shear, 1999). In Buddhist practice especially,subjectivity is explicitly adopted as a resource with whichto work in the cultivation (bhāvanā) of awareness ofexperience. But, on the other hand, mindfulness practiceembodies a very specific orientation to experience, whichhas been described as “selfless.” If we were to callthis “observer independence” then it is very different tothe scientific understanding (see Section 10). In earlyBuddhism, the distancing is primarily from a self who isobserving experience, and phenomena are not objectified(or reified) but instead understood as interdependent uponother phenomena. In Anålayo’s description, the process ofmindfulness is given agency as the observer, rather thanthe person of the meditator themselves, which subtlyimplies the selfless nature of the witnessing. ‘Who is doingthe witnessing?’ therefore becomes a valid question to fuelmeditative inquiry.

It seems that when confronting Buddhist ideas, wemight learn from James’ well known openness to paradoxand contradiction. Nevertheless, from now onwards, I willbe dispensing where possible with observational defini-tions of introspection and mindfulness.

6. Pursuing mindful experiential inquiry: balancingstability and open awareness

The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wanderingattention, over and over again, is the very root of judg-ment, character, and will. No one is compos sui if he haveit not. An education which should improve this facultywould be the education par excellence. But it is easier todefine this ideal than to give practical directions forbringing it about (James, 1890, p. 424; emphasis inoriginal).

This is James’ account of what he terms “voluntarysustained attention” and perhaps a good definition of the

capacity trained in concentration meditation. Kabat-Zinn(2005) claims that when he penned this passage, James“obviously didn’t know about the practice of mindfulness”(p. 117). But in the Varieties, James (1902, pp. 400–402)displayed his awareness of absorption (jhåna) statesresulting from concentration (samådhi) meditation prac-tice, states closely linked to mindfulness and insight(vipassanå) meditation practice in Theravada Buddhism.These states provide the prerequisite stability and calm(samatha) necessary for cultivating mindfulness (sati) andconducting experiential inquiry or insight meditation(vipassanå) into the nature of experience (see Batchelor,2011). While James does not seem to have been aware ofmindfulness per se, he would have understood it, due to itsapparent similarity to his introspective method. Its bodilytraining regimes would also have fascinated him (seeSection 7).

Research in cognitive neuroscience distinguishessharply between concentration meditation and openawareness meditation (e.g. see Raffone & Srinivasan,2010; Lutz, Dunne & Davidson, 2007). Concentrationmeditation involves repeatedly bringing the attentionback to a specific point (e.g. Transcendental Meditation orRelaxation Response training). By contrast, open aware-ness meditation involves maintaining a broader aware-ness of what is happening in experience while it ishappening (e.g. mindfulness meditation or vipassanāmeditation). But according to Buddhist literature andpractice, mindfulness and vipassanā meditation bothinvolve a balanced cultivation of concentration (orstability) of mind (samādhi) and breadth of mind(mindful awareness). Samādhi provides stability in themind–body leading to experiences of calm (samatha).This creates a subjective ‘space’ between the arising ofbodily sensations, feelings and thoughts so that we canbecome more aware (mindful) of them. All of thesetogether allow for experiential inquiry to be pursued andembodied intuitive insights to be produced (vipassanā).‘Access concentration’ is the point at which enough calmand stability is achieved to inquire into the subjectivepatterning or construction of experience, moment bymoment. Thus, mindful inquiry comprises a balancing ofstability and open awareness.

In order to support this inward orientation, a setting forformal practice is required, apart from ordinary everydaysocial encounters. Try the following exercise. Set a timer toring in 10 minutes time. Find a quiet, secluded place, withfew distractions. Adopt an open, upright yet comfortableposture which is self-supported if possible, perhaps ina chair or sitting on a cushion. Close or half-close your eyesand incline your head downwards, to facilitate becomingmore aware of your bodily sensations. Notice any obviousplaces of intentional holding in your body: the base of thestomach, shoulders, hands, forehead, around the eyes, thejaw. Release them if you can. Notice those parts of yourbody which are contacting the ‘outside’ world: sensationsof skin against clothing; bottom sitting; feet on floor. If youbecome distracted by thoughts of past or future, let themgo. When you are ready, take three deep breaths, expand-ing your lungs. Feel the movement this creates in yourbody. Then, letting the breath breathe itself, see if you can

6 We do not know the content of Dharmapala’s talk to James and hisstudents. But it is possible that it was based on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta andVisuddhimagga; texts, which feature detailed instructions for pursuingmindfulness meditation featuring the body as a central object ofcontemplation (Roberts, 1997).

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feel where the breath can be felt most readily. Rest yourattention on these changing sensations, whether at thebelly, chest, or nostrils. Keep your attention there for theremaining time. Breath in, knowing you are breathing in.Breath out, knowing you are breathing out (adapted fromBatchelor, 1997; see also Hanh, 1975).

The beginning instructions help to experientiallysynchronise one’smind and body, by “tethering” awarenesswith changing bodily sensations (Varela, Thompson, &Rosch, 1991). Mindfulness knows what is happening inour experience as it is happening; it includes the capacity toknow that we have become distracted. By creatingsubjective “space” betweenmoments of consciousness, onecultivates momentary experiences of calm or stillness inmind and body. But our usual tendency when beginning tomeditate is to move whenwe are physically uncomfortableand/or to start remembering events from the past, or planfor the future. By adopting a stable posture and repeatedlybringing our attention back to bodily sensations when werealise we are distracted, we momentarily stop reactivepatterns of thinking and movement. We allow ourselves tobecome more aware of what is actually happening in ourpresent experience. Our attention turns to the arising ofsensations, feelings and thoughts (for example) and howour experience is constructed, rather than the content ofexperience itself.

7. Mindfulness and introspection as embodied stylesof experiential inquiry

Pagis (2009, 2010a, 2010b) has conducted a two yearcross-cultural ethnographic participant-observation ofvipassanå meditation practitioners. She characterisesvipassanå as a meditative practice gounded in awareness ofbodily sensations. It is initially and primarily a form ofembodied reflexivity, quite different to a discursive reflex-ivitywherein onemakes oneself a subject or object throughlanguage (‘I’, ‘me’, ‘mine’) (Pagis, 2009). Neuroimagingresearch supports these observations. The capacity to bemindful is supported by right lateralised exteroceptivesomatic and interoceptive insular cortices, which supportour engagement with experiential content (e.g. sensory andbodily awareness) rather than narrative content (e.g. con-structing an autobiographical self) (Farb et al., 2007; Tagini& Raffone, 2010). Cortical regions associated with somato-sensory, auditory, visual and interoceptive processing werethicker for a group of mindfulness meditation practitionersthan matched controls (Lazar et al., 2005). Most regionssupporting mindfulness were found in the right hemi-sphere, essential for sustaining attention (e.g. right anteriorinsula, essential for bodily attention and visceral aware-ness). This research suggests that open awareness of bodilysensations is essential for mindfulness.

Shusterman (2008) similarly describes mindfulnessmeditation as an “experiential” (oriented toward innerexperience) rather than representational (oriented towardexternal appearance) style of “practical somaesthetics”. It isnot about observing one’s own and other’s bodies from the“outside” but rather feeling one’s own bodily sensationsfrom “within”. In the words of Merleau-Ponty (1945),mindfulness involves getting in touch with the “lived” body

of experience, rather than the “objective” body of science. Itinvolves knowing the “spontaneous” body of the momentas well as the “habit-body” of sedimented routine activity.The Buddha might therefore be seen as a ‘somatic philos-opher’ par excellence. Similarly, Shusterman (2008, p. 66,p. 138) claims that James was a “somatic philosopher”who made “somatic introspection” central to his researchin philosophy of mind, in part resulting from personalphysical difficulties, and illustrated through his training inanatomy and physiology. James was an adventurousexplorer in all three branches of “somaesthetics”:

[T]he analytic study of the body’s role in perception,experience, and action and thus in our mental, moral,and social life; the pragmatic study of methodologies toimprove our body-mind functioning and thus expandour capacities of self-fashioning; and the practicalbranch that investigates such pragmatic methods bytesting them on our own flesh in concrete experienceand practice (p. 139).

Shusterman presents James as arguing for the“centrality of bodily experience in our mental and sociallife” (p. 140). He finds “scattered but insightful” remarks byJames on “somaesthetic introspection, the examination ofone’s own bodily feelings” (p. 158). The guidelines for howJames conducted his introspections broadly parallel the‘body scanning’ found in secular mindfulness courses andvipassanå practices found in some Buddhist Theravadacontexts. Body scanning involves feeling subtle and obviousbodily sensations from within, and asking questions ofone’s sensory experience, in order to fuel experientialinquiry. James asked questions which included: Can youmove your attentional focus throughout the body? Can younotice any contrasts of feeling? Can you associate yourobjects of attention with other things that interest orconcern you (e.g. your health)? Can youward off competinginterests? Does it help to use linguistic tags to noteparticular sensations? These were questions which Jamesused to inform his own practice of somaesthetic intro-spection; the parallels with Buddhist practices areremarkable.6

Such practices may appear to be purely introspective, inthe sense of only being directed within, and thereforedisconnected from the social world. It is important tounderstand that both mindfulness and introspectioninvolve coming into contact with our experience in order tounderstand, and transform, how we relate to that experi-ence. We avoid committing what James called ‘thepsychologist’s fallacy’ (or Titchener’s ‘stimulus error’) ofdescribing the characteristics of an object by insteadgetting interested in how our experience of that object isconstructed. At the same time, solid divisions betweenwhat we call ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ become deconstructed. Forexample, the sensations of breathing are at this boundary.

7 See Bailey (1999) for further discussion.

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The air we breath through our nostrils is from outside ofus and we breath air which has been inside of us.Breath awareness is therefore both internal and externalmindfulness. We become interested in our experience ofhow inside and outside is constituted in practice (seeKramer, 2007; Petitmengin, 2009; Shusterman, 2008).

8. Mindful discoveries: streams, birds and bamboopoles

When inwardly sensing the body through mindfulness,the mind may be found to be “wild” or “drowsy” (Depraz,Varela & Vermersch, 2001). If wild, chances are thata torrent of discursive thoughts will be noticed. James(1890) used ordinary language to describe inner life ascomprising “thoughts” and “feelings”, and adopteda metaphor of moving water, when he described thethinking mind as the “thought stream”. He made a famousdefinition of introspection as observing the “stream ofconsciousness” from within.

Consciousness . does not appear to itself chopped upin bits. Such words as ‘chain’ or ‘train’ do not describe itfitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothingjointed; it flows. A ‘river’ or ‘stream’ are the metaphorsby which it is most naturally described. In talking of ithereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, ofconsciousness, or of subjective life (James, 1890, p. 239;emphasis in original).

This metaphor, which is used throughout the Principles,brings attention to the changing nature of consciousness. Itsubtly undermines the idea that when we introspect, wediscover an unchanging self. The “stream of thought” isa continuous flow of mental events and sensations. Jamesdiscovered that “thought is in constant change” (p. 229),“no state once gone can recur and be identical with what itwas before” (p. 230; emphasis in original) and “there is noproof that the same bodily sensation is ever got by us twice”(p. 231; emphasis in original). His emphasis upon trans-formation parallels a concern in Buddhist Psychology withimpermanence (anicca). It reflects Anålayo’s (2003) defi-nition of satipaṭṭhāna as an injunction to “keep calmlyknowing change”. As one becomes experientially aware ofthe changing nature of reality, one’s assumption thatphenomena are permanent and stable is undermined –

including the self. Indeed, James (1890) considered changeto be a prerequisite for preserving one’s sustained volun-tary attention on a given object.

The metaphor of the ‘stream’ evokes a semblance ofcontinuity against a background of change. However,mindfulness practitioners have claimed that this changing“stream of thought” is discontinuous, not continuous. Anexperienced meditator becomes aware that the “stream” ofconsciousness is “made up of moments of awareness,moments that can be introspectively individuated anddescribed” (Dreyfus & Thompson, 2007, p. 95). Only theuntrained practitioner (or non-mindfulness meditator)experiences consciousness as an unbroken, continuousstream. For example, Slagter et al. (2007) show that threemonths of vipassanā meditation training results in smaller‘attentional blink’.

Consciousness is being understood here as a momen-tary event or process, rather than an entity. In BuddhistPsychology, each moment requires a consciousness, bodilyform, and object. Moment by moment, we construct ourrealities, via this trinity (Olendzki, 2011). In the Buddhistteaching of dependent origination, the co-arising of thetripartite constitutes ‘contact’. With contact arises ‘feeling’(vedanā) or hedonic tone: pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.If we attach ‘I, me, or mine’ to such liking or disliking, andbegin to ‘crave’ (taṇhā) or ‘cling’ towhat ‘we’want or do notwant, we begin the process of self-construction andthereby experience dukkha (suffering). This is why theobservational metaphor is inappropriate; the split betweenan observing/observed self comes later in the experientialprocess.

This understanding is similar to James’ comments onconsciousness being: “Like a bird’s life, it seems to be madeof an alternation of flights and perchings” (p. 243). “Let uscall the resting-places the ‘substantive parts,’ and the places offlight the ‘transitive parts’, of the stream of thought” (James,1890, p. 243; emphasis in original). We tend to concen-trate our attentions on the substantive mental states – ourdesired thoughts or emotions. However, the:

[T]ransition between the thought of one object and thethought of another is no more a break in the thoughtthan a joint in a bamboo is break in the wood. It is a partof the consciousness as much as the joint is a part of thebamboo” (James, 1890, p. 240).7

For James, personal continuity is a feeling, which resultsfrom the lack of awareness of the “time-gaps” (p. 237)between thoughts, which arise and pass away. “Myself, I, orme” are names, which work to attribute consciousness witha personal identity (p. 238). Thoughts and feelings areremembered and taken to be a part of a “personalconsciousness” as a consequence of the “warmth and inti-macy” which characterises our subjective, bodily relation-ship to them (p. 239).

By bringing attention to James’ use of naturalisticmetaphors in describing his results of introspection, I amsubtly aligning ourselves with our natural worlds, andcontesting the dominant cognitivist computational meta-phor of the mind-brain as an information processor, whichsees mindfulness as a ‘meta-cognitive’ decentering (e.g.Bishop et al., 2004). Such metaphors imply that there aremore similarities than differences between human beingsand computing machines. But adopting a non-dualisticstance towards mindfulness arguably involves rejectinga classical cognitivist mind/body division and the repre-sentationalism of computational and connectionist cogni-tivism in favour of an embodied or enactive theory (seeVarela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991).

9. From formal practice to everyday life

James (1890) argued that introspection should not beapplied in everyday life contexts, because it would disruptthe automaticity of habitual conduct. Merleau-Ponty

S. Stanley / New Ideas in Psychology 30 (2012) 201–211 209

similarly argued against reflection as being important forsocial life, as it might disrupt the pre-reflective automa-ticity of bodily responsivity. But Shusterman (2008) arguesinstead that mindfulness is potentially useful for improvingour functioning and ameliorating bad habits, especiallypostural habits. The confinement of introspection to anobservational role in psychological theory, rather thanbeing used in everyday life, is therefore a major limitationof James’ perspective. However, this deficit is being reme-died by a new generation of researchers adopting intro-spection as method within consciousness studies.

Petitmengin, Navarro and Le Van Queyn (2007) havedeveloped an interview method which trains participantssuffering from epileptic seizures to become more aware ofand describe their pre-reflective experience before theonset of a seizure. Participants are requested to remembera past seizure (the lived experience) and asked specificquestions to produce a concrete evocation of the preictalexperience (the retrospection). Once the memory is stabi-lised, the participant is trained to remember specificaspects of that experience (visual, kinaesthetic, auditory,olfactory, emotional, inner speech). One participant,Christelle repeatedly passed her hand over her forehead asshe remembered the onset of a seizure. She became awareof a bodily sensation: a “slight touch, like a breeze, a veilthat lightly touches my forehead”. The participant was thentrained to become more aware of the genesis of thesensations themselves and articulate that genesis such thatthey are more likely to become aware of them whena seizure is about to occur. Their research found thatepileptic seizures can be anticipated both phenomenolog-ically and neurologically. This is a concrete example of howan introspection-based interviewing method involvingsecond-person (intersubjective) training and mediationcan be combined with third-person neuroimaging inapplied research. It also illustrates how mindfulness mightbe brought to bear upon pre-reflective experience ineveryday life, which includes bodily sensations, of whichwe are often unaware.

10. Transcending the observing and observed self

Observational definitions of mindfulness, which divideexperience into observer and observed, are problematic,because the practice seeks to undermine such divisions inexperience, particularly in concentration meditations(Rosenbaum, 2009). Buddhist mindfulness is practiced inorder to release the tight hold of self-concern, self-consciousness and selfishness (Anålayo, 2003) – includingthe idea of a self who is observing, contemplating ormeditating. This practice may therefore take us beyondJames’ introspection, developed primarily for the specificpurpose of making Mental and Moral Philosophy a moreobjective, scientific endeavour (Richards, 2010).

What does this mean in practice? Our habitual clingingto, or identificationwith, an ‘I’ in experience is brought intoawareness and gradually – or sometimes suddenly, as inZen – released. One does not “personalize consciousness”in mindfulness practice (Genoud, 2009); BuddhistPsychology “avoids the postulation of a unified subject”(Dreyfus & Thompson, 2007, p. 93). Instead, experience is

decomposed or deconstructed into distinct body–mind-social processes arising and passing away, dependent uponspecific changing conditions. A mental state is itselfunderstood to be aware of the object of attention. Accord-ing to Dreyfus and Thompson (2007), in BuddhistPsychology, “[t]he thoughts themselves are the thinker, andthe experiences the experiencer” (p. 93; see also Epstein’s(1996) Thoughts Without a Thinker which is in turn bor-rowed from the psychoanalyst Bion). But this quotationcould easily be a paraphrase of James (1890): “If the passingthought be the directly verifiable existent which no school hashitherto doubted it to be, then that thought is itself the thinker,and psychology need not look beyond” (p. 401; emphasis inoriginal). “The passing Thought. seems to be the Thinker”(p. 342).

James (1890) was critical of three “theories ofthe Ego” which assume a fixed, unchanging “Soul-Substance”: spiritualist, associationist, and transcen-dentalist. In this sense, his arguments are similar to theBuddha’s process view of self, as a changing, condi-tioned, centre-less phenomena (anattå). Gotama wasarguing against the dominant Brahminical belief inan abiding self (atman). Instead of seeking absorptionwith Brahman by detaching oneself from sensoryconsciousness (i.e. jhana states), the Buddha’s mindful-ness practices used sensory awareness to investigate theselfless and conditional nature of lived experience(Batchelor, 2010). Subjectivity is constructed at the pointwhere craving and clinging are generated towardsthe object(s) of experience and taken to be personalpossessions. “Consciousness is not a subject, but anactivity, a process, an event recurring moment aftermoment’ (Olendzki, 2011, p. 67). James’ (1890) chapterThe Consciousness of Self similarly assumed that the selfis non-unitary and a product of construction processes.But Buddhist mindfulness practice may take us further,towards an embodied experience of selflessness.

The ‘non-dualism’ embodied in Buddhist practice is notbetween consciousness and its objects, but rather betweena subject (or self) who likes or dislikes the objects ofconsciousness. The point of liking or disliking is wherea personal consciousness becomes constructed. Thus, the‘observer’ of experience is a fiction, but neverthelessa functional fiction (James, 1890). Observational definitionsof mindfulness and introspection are inappropriatebecause they construct a subject/object duality too earlybefore such a construction happens in the psycho-physical-social construction process.

11. Conclusion

I have attempted to present a non-dualistic approach inwhich introspection and mindfulness are seen as bothpublic and private, individual and social, internal andexternal. They are practices, which work at the boundary ofeach of these denotions, and may involve collapsing suchdistinctions in practice. This ‘middle way’ stance takesus beyond the extremes of ‘subjectivism’ and ‘objectivism’.Through this understanding, we can begin to seeconsciousness itself as a boundary phenomenon, existing atthe intersection between what we call our interior and

S. Stanley / New Ideas in Psychology 30 (2012) 201–211210

exterior lives. Mindfulness practice allows one to witnessthe construction of such artificial divisions in experience.The experiential undermining of an unchanging and iso-lated self radically compromises the subsequent distinctionoften made between self and other. It therefore has majorsocial, relational and ethical implications (see Loy, 2003).

What remains is to bring such first-person insights intothe domain of empirical second-person practice and vali-dation (see Petitmengin, 2009; Thompson, 2001;Vermersch, 2009). This will involve applying the presentarguments to developing dyadic and/or group-basedmethods in order to cultivate mindfulness and introspec-tion at a collective level (see Kramer, 2007). Parallels withDescriptive Experience Sampling and Elicitation Interviewmethodologies, which employ second-person guidedintrospective methods, as well as the early German schoolsof systematic experimental introspection, will be instruc-tive (Kusch, 1995; Maurel, 2009; Petitmengin & Bitbol,2009). This will allow the present - largely theoretical-discussion to be applied in the context of empiricalresearch, perhaps combining experiential, qualitative andneuroimaging methods.

‘Mindfulness’ is not only to be understood as an abstractidea or concept but also embodied and experienced asa practice. The great risk of the engagement with mind-fulness in the West, whether through Buddhist Studies orPsychology, is that it is taken as an object of study, to bewritten about, rather than as something to do or be. Only ifmindfulness and introspection are practiced will James’prediction one hundred years ago have the chance ofcoming to fruition, just a little later than he expected.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Cardiff Mindfulness Group,participants of the Building a Compassionate Societyconference-retreat on Holy Isle (Scotland), as well as MegBarker, Michael Billig, Mark Finn, John Peacock, Sarah Rees,ValerieWalkerdine and four anonymous reviewers for theirhelpful comments on previous drafts of this paper.

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