Consciousness, Being and Life: Phenomenological Approaches to Mindfulness

摘要

A phenomenological view of contemplative disciplines is presented. However, studying mindfulness by phenomenology is at odds with both neurobiological and anthropological approaches. It involves the first;person standpoint, the openness of being;in;the;world, the umwelt of the meditator, instead of assessing her neural processes and behaviors from a neutral, distanced, third;person standpoint. It then turns out that phenomenology cannot produce a discourse about mindfulness. Phenomenology rather induces a cross;fertilization between the state of mindfulness and its own methods of mental cultivation. A comparison between the epoche, the phenomenological reduction, and the practice of mindfulness, is then undertaken.