FACULTY OF AWARENESS

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment--And Your Life (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2012) ("Is it not true that ever since we were in school, we were trained to think 'properly,' to think critically? Isn't that a good deal of what school is for? I remember very clearly asking my teachers . . . , when it came to learning something that I did not like or want to learn, . . . 'Why do we have to learn this?' Usually, when the teacher didn't get angry but took the question seriously, the response was that it would help us develop the capacity to think critically and to speak and reason more clearly and more thoughtfully." "And you know what? It turns out that it is true. We certainly do need a foundation in critical thinking and in analytical and deductive reasoning in order to understand the world and not be totally lost or overwhelmed by it. So thinking--precise, keen, critical thinking--is an extremely important faculty we need to develop, refine, and deepen. But it is not the only capacity we have that needs developing, refining, and deepening. There is another equally important faculty that almost never gets any systematic attention or training in school, and that is the faculty of awareness. Yet awareness is at least as important and useful to us as thinking. In fact, it is demonstrably more powerful in that any thought, no matter how profound, can be held in awareness." Id. at 31-32. "Liberation from greed, hatred, and delusion." Id. at 116.).