Paper short abstract:

The presentation aims to look at meditation,particularly Mindfulness meditation, as a technique that re-orders reality . The meditation re-focuses the body regular engagement in and perception of its environment in order to refresh its experience of reality.

Paper long abstract:

Siting, or zazen, Buddhist meditation will be discussed as a technique that re-orders reality by overcoming the mind in its 'delusional state'. The ultimate goal of Buddhism is Enlightenment consisting in breaking out of the illusion of duality created by this 'delusional state' which is also called 'monkey mind' and characterised by reactively 'running around' after the distractions of everyday life. Still, focused and non-reactive states are both the goal and the method in meditation practice. I draw from the phenomenological exploration of Mindfulness through first hand practice, anthropological fieldwork as well as from the biological understanding of the physiology of the meditative states. Mindful Meditation as movement slows down the biological process while stepping into the river of life. The mind re-focuses the body's regular engagement in and perception of its environment in order to refresh its experience of reality. Remaining centered, literally and metaphorically, still, yet paradoxically moving as one with the basic rhythm of the breath, the automatic biological processes and the play of nature outside. The value of the phenomenological lens will be discussed in its relevance to 'translating' and making Buddhist terminology and ontology comprehensible to non-Buddhist academics. More specifically Merleau-Ponty's notion of 'web' and Deleuze and Guattari's notion of 'becoming' help us understand the Buddhist ontology of a non-dual reality. Zazen meditation will be further compared with moving meditations such as mindful walking as both constitute the Buddhist philosophy that attention, overcoming the distractions of mundane existence lead to an 'awakening' to non-dual reality.