Hacking Mindfulness

I do Vipassana aka mindfulness meditation. several years and doing ok with it. felt pretty good, could do it for longer and longer (quantified times).

One day I was sitting and I thought: how to measure mindfulness? Google turned up the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory

Then I thought ok, if I can “measure” it on that scale (which seemed to list qualities of mindfulness I appreciate) … then how can I get my score to go up?

Reminders.

So I bought a MotivAider (pic) and set it at various recurring vibrations (every 2 to 4 minutes) … and found that my score went up the first couple of days. Good!

Sometimes having the thing go off all the time got annoying, but I never had any mixed message: when it went off I knew that meant to ask myself “what is happening right now?” … this helps me to constantly be awake and aware of what I see as happening right now… this helps me step outside of my thoughts, emotions, and senses and appreciate that things arise and go away very quickly, which helps me not try to hold on to them or run away from them (which, to me, is the definition of suffering).

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Thought I’d blow the dust off this post because damn it’s exactly what I’m vibing right now and maybe someone else will too.

Thanks Said for blowing the dust off this. I tried a project with my 1-Button prototype that involved pressing the button during meditation every time my attention returned after losing focus. I didn’t know if I would be able to train myself to do this without messing with my meditation practice too much, but it turned out to be pretty easy, and I actually became a bit dependent on it. Somehow pressing the button and feeling the vibration every time I noticed my mind had drifted because an aid to holding my attention.