Introduction to Mindfulness_349810_bookemon_ebook.pdf Coaching and Practising Mindfulness | Page 35

How do these processes unfold together?
Imagine that you’re hungry, and you open the refrigerator door. The
eye sees patterns of light, dark, and color in the visual field, which are
quickly organized by the brain and perceived as a freshly made
sandwich. Instantaneously a positive feeling toward the sandwich
arises, and an intention forms to pick it up and eat it. This is soon
followed by the behavior of actually taking a bite. Consciousness
creates and responds to our reality so quickly that the process is
usually unconscious.
Intentions and the behaviors that follow from them tend to become
habitual and turn into dispositions. Dispositions are the residue of
previous decisions, stored in memory as habits, learned behaviors,
personality traits, etc., and provide historical precedents for how to
respond to each newly arising moment. Feedback loops develop,
whereby one’s present response to any situation is both shaped by
previous experience and goes on to mold the dispositions that will
influence future responses. If we enjoyed this and other sandwiches
in the past, we may develop the habit of reflexively picking up and
eating sandwiches, even when we’re not really hungry.
Putting this all together, the six sense doors and five systems interact
simultaneously to form a dynamic interdependently arising process of
mind and body, constructing meaning from an ever-changing barrage
of environmental information. In each moment, which can be
measured in milliseconds, all this arises concurrently, organizes
around a particular bit of data, and then passes away.
One unique feature of Buddhist psychology is that consciousness is
regarded as an unfolding process, or an occurring event, rather than
as an existing entity. Nothing permanent abides (and there is no
enduring “me” to be found) because every “thing” is a series of
interrelated events. The everyday sense that we (and other beings)
have separate existence comes from the fact that each moment of
cognition is followed by another moment of cognition, yielding the
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