In my experience, the primary goal of meditation is to dissolve the perceived boundaries between subject and object, dissolve the sense that there is a "self" riding around in the head, separate from the rest of the body and the world. The benefit of doing this is that cognition becomes embodied and decentralized. Things become "known" on their own as such, without there being the neurotic dictator running things from the top.
Much of the meditation that is taught today, mindfulness (or Vipassana), is aimed towards clarifying the sensory field, noticing moment-to-moment experience without the filter of narrative overlay that we are normally embedded in. In Buddhism in particular, it is about noticing that sensations seem to have three predominant qualities: they are (a) impermanent and thus (b) cannot give ultimate satisfaction, and (c) they are impersonal, i.e., the are not part of nor do they belong to a self.
While this is a very helpful technique that can lead to awakening (however somebody wants to define that), I feel like it is more effective in combination with self inquiry. Self inquiry comes mainly from the Vedanta tradition (although it can also be found to some extent in Zen and other non-Therevada traditions). There has been some discussion of combining the techniques, but IMO not in a very interesting or integrative way.
Here is how self inquiry can integrate with mindfulness. One can define mindfulness as being a two part process of cultivation: awareness and acceptance. Awareness means becoming aware (or alternatively objectifying) more and more phenomenon in awareness. So, for example, becoming aware of sensations in the body, perhaps noticing the signature of stress and anxiety in the form of a micro tension somewhere, and then just accepting that it is there, not trying to push it away or hold onto it. By doing this, more often then not, the tension starts to dissolve on it own. This can happen over and over again with increasingly subtler and deeper aspects of the mind. Relieving the top layers of tension opens space for other deeper tensions in the subconscious to arise, become conscious, and then again dissolve themselves. Often people are able to work through years of suppressed trauma through this method, slowly and deliberately.
Related to this process, self inquiry helps to bring things to awareness more directly, to augment the first step in the mindfulness process, in particular the sensations associated with the sense of being the observer, and which are not normally recognized as sensations. So what is self-inquiry? It is normally associated with asking oneself the question "who am I?" or a similar type of question, and then "seeing what comes up". Here I am going to give a broader definition that incorporates three particular orientations that on the surface are contradictory, but which each end with the same goal. They may seem contradictory because there are two fundamental things happening in a dialectical manner. One is the movement to notice directly the selfless nature of experience. The second is just the opposite, to deliberately notice the self nature of experience. By approaching experience from both directions iteratively, the intuitive mind can notice what seems to be the most true.
The first orientation is that of affirming alternative stances. One can affirm the selfless nature of experience, for example, stating things like "there is knowing", "there is seeing", "there is the sensed", etc. The point of doing this is to notice that these things are just kind of happening on their own, without much special effort from a "doer". Alternatively one could affirm the opposite. They could state something like "I", "me", "mine", "I am looking", "I am seeing", "this experience belongs to me", "this is my experience", etc. Here, they are calling attention to the normally implicit self sense that is usually doing these things, and then trying to notice the sensations that make up that sense. So for example, one could state "I am looking", and then notice what that feels like in the body. Often, it is associated with sensations behind the eyes, and by noticing it they are objectifying these sensations, bringing them into the foreground, and therefore removing them from the implicit self sense and into the sense that phenomenon is just happening, i.e., something more like "there is looking" instead of "I am looking".
The second orientation is that of negating the self stance. Instead of stating, for example, "I am looking", you state instead, "there is nobody looking", and then observe how awareness and sensations in the body react. One might get a direct sense that there is just the seeing happening, without a sense of the observer. Or alternatively they might notice a strong sense of the observer that is defensively reacting to the assertion. In the latter case, one can again notice the sensations that make up the experience, and then let them dissolve. As with affirmations, there are many possible permutations that the person can play with.
The third category is that of questioning the self stance. The classic question again is "who am I", but there are many other possibilities (almost infinite). Some that I have found really useful include: "where am I", "what is aware", "what is aware of looking/hearing/sensing/feeling", "who looks/sees/feels" "to whom or what is this appearing to", "when am I", "where is the awareness of feeling", and "where is my mind". The point with these is again to dig up the normally implicit sense of self that is performing some task, is located in some particular location and time, and then noticing that it is comprised of sensations that can be objectified and therefore seen as not self (because by definition the self cannot be the thing that is noticed). This can also be applied readily to emotions that inevitably come in during meditation. For example, "who is feeling anxious/sad/angry", or "where is the awareness of this anxiety/sadness/anger located".
I don't recommend sticking to a set formula for this, even if one particular strategy seemed to be effective in the past. Cultivating and learning to trust ones intuition plays a big role in this process. I do recommend starting any practice with an initial settling-in period, a gentle mindfulness of what sensations or energies seem most prominent in experience. And then, use ones intuition or interest to guide the practice from there, to find the affirmation, negation, or question that seems have the most juice. If an approach starts to seem bland, one can continue to switch it up until some kind of energetic movement takes place. Find the path of least resistance. More broadly, one might also find that self inquiry is too intellectual and stressful at the moment, and would prefer to relax into straight mindfulness of body sensations.
With practice one starts to develop a feel for the process, a meta-cognitive intuition that highlights the correct technique at the appropriate time to slowly untangle the sense of a permanent and separate "observer". Over time, this may lead to experience becoming more like a decentralized and fluid network of cognitive moments, more responsive and intelligent than if everything was being passed through the central node of the sense of self-locus.
Much of the meditation that is taught today, mindfulness (or Vipassana), is aimed towards clarifying the sensory field, noticing moment-to-moment experience without the filter of narrative overlay that we are normally embedded in. In Buddhism in particular, it is about noticing that sensations seem to have three predominant qualities: they are (a) impermanent and thus (b) cannot give ultimate satisfaction, and (c) they are impersonal, i.e., the are not part of nor do they belong to a self.
While this is a very helpful technique that can lead to awakening (however somebody wants to define that), I feel like it is more effective in combination with self inquiry. Self inquiry comes mainly from the Vedanta tradition (although it can also be found to some extent in Zen and other non-Therevada traditions). There has been some discussion of combining the techniques, but IMO not in a very interesting or integrative way.
Here is how self inquiry can integrate with mindfulness. One can define mindfulness as being a two part process of cultivation: awareness and acceptance. Awareness means becoming aware (or alternatively objectifying) more and more phenomenon in awareness. So, for example, becoming aware of sensations in the body, perhaps noticing the signature of stress and anxiety in the form of a micro tension somewhere, and then just accepting that it is there, not trying to push it away or hold onto it. By doing this, more often then not, the tension starts to dissolve on it own. This can happen over and over again with increasingly subtler and deeper aspects of the mind. Relieving the top layers of tension opens space for other deeper tensions in the subconscious to arise, become conscious, and then again dissolve themselves. Often people are able to work through years of suppressed trauma through this method, slowly and deliberately.
Related to this process, self inquiry helps to bring things to awareness more directly, to augment the first step in the mindfulness process, in particular the sensations associated with the sense of being the observer, and which are not normally recognized as sensations. So what is self-inquiry? It is normally associated with asking oneself the question "who am I?" or a similar type of question, and then "seeing what comes up". Here I am going to give a broader definition that incorporates three particular orientations that on the surface are contradictory, but which each end with the same goal. They may seem contradictory because there are two fundamental things happening in a dialectical manner. One is the movement to notice directly the selfless nature of experience. The second is just the opposite, to deliberately notice the self nature of experience. By approaching experience from both directions iteratively, the intuitive mind can notice what seems to be the most true.
The first orientation is that of affirming alternative stances. One can affirm the selfless nature of experience, for example, stating things like "there is knowing", "there is seeing", "there is the sensed", etc. The point of doing this is to notice that these things are just kind of happening on their own, without much special effort from a "doer". Alternatively one could affirm the opposite. They could state something like "I", "me", "mine", "I am looking", "I am seeing", "this experience belongs to me", "this is my experience", etc. Here, they are calling attention to the normally implicit self sense that is usually doing these things, and then trying to notice the sensations that make up that sense. So for example, one could state "I am looking", and then notice what that feels like in the body. Often, it is associated with sensations behind the eyes, and by noticing it they are objectifying these sensations, bringing them into the foreground, and therefore removing them from the implicit self sense and into the sense that phenomenon is just happening, i.e., something more like "there is looking" instead of "I am looking".
The second orientation is that of negating the self stance. Instead of stating, for example, "I am looking", you state instead, "there is nobody looking", and then observe how awareness and sensations in the body react. One might get a direct sense that there is just the seeing happening, without a sense of the observer. Or alternatively they might notice a strong sense of the observer that is defensively reacting to the assertion. In the latter case, one can again notice the sensations that make up the experience, and then let them dissolve. As with affirmations, there are many possible permutations that the person can play with.
The third category is that of questioning the self stance. The classic question again is "who am I", but there are many other possibilities (almost infinite). Some that I have found really useful include: "where am I", "what is aware", "what is aware of looking/hearing/sensing/feeling", "who looks/sees/feels" "to whom or what is this appearing to", "when am I", "where is the awareness of feeling", and "where is my mind". The point with these is again to dig up the normally implicit sense of self that is performing some task, is located in some particular location and time, and then noticing that it is comprised of sensations that can be objectified and therefore seen as not self (because by definition the self cannot be the thing that is noticed). This can also be applied readily to emotions that inevitably come in during meditation. For example, "who is feeling anxious/sad/angry", or "where is the awareness of this anxiety/sadness/anger located".
I don't recommend sticking to a set formula for this, even if one particular strategy seemed to be effective in the past. Cultivating and learning to trust ones intuition plays a big role in this process. I do recommend starting any practice with an initial settling-in period, a gentle mindfulness of what sensations or energies seem most prominent in experience. And then, use ones intuition or interest to guide the practice from there, to find the affirmation, negation, or question that seems have the most juice. If an approach starts to seem bland, one can continue to switch it up until some kind of energetic movement takes place. Find the path of least resistance. More broadly, one might also find that self inquiry is too intellectual and stressful at the moment, and would prefer to relax into straight mindfulness of body sensations.
With practice one starts to develop a feel for the process, a meta-cognitive intuition that highlights the correct technique at the appropriate time to slowly untangle the sense of a permanent and separate "observer". Over time, this may lead to experience becoming more like a decentralized and fluid network of cognitive moments, more responsive and intelligent than if everything was being passed through the central node of the sense of self-locus.
