PDF Summary:The Mind Illuminated, by Culadasa, Matthew Immergut, and Jeremy Graves

Many people frame meditation as a way to reduce stress, feel calm, or be more present—but according to the authors of The Mind Illuminated, these aren’t its main goals. Instead, they argue, meditation is primarily a way to train your mind so you can experience enlightenment: a mental state that provides freedom from suffering. By following the recommendations outlined in The Mind Illuminated, you can journey from novice meditator to enlightened meditator in 10 sequential stages.

In this guide, we’ll explore the authors’ advice for training your mind to reach enlightenment. We’ll compare their ideas about meditation to those of other experts, such as Bhante Gunaratana (Mindfulness in Plain English) and Jon Kabat-Zinn (Wherever You Go, There You Are). We’ll also supplement their insights with cultural, historical, and scientific context, and we’ll offer additional tips for meditating.

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Truth 1 (dukkha): Life is full of suffering. Some argue that “unsatisfactoriness” is a better translation of dukkha than “suffering” because it captures how constant craving makes us feel persistently dissatisfied.

Truth 2 (samudaya): You suffer because you crave permanence (such as youthful looks, enduring happiness, and long-lasting possessions). Some translations of this Truth call our craving for permanent pleasure “clinging” or “attachment,” and they call our craving for pain to end “aversion” or “hatred.”

Truth 3 (nirodha): You can end this suffering by realizing that you’ll never satisfy these cravings for permanence because everything is impermanent.

Truth 4 (magga): By living a lifestyle known as the Eightfold Path (which we’ll explore later), you can cease your cravings permanently and reach enlightenment.

How Enlightenment Benefits Others

The authors also say that your enlightenment benefits others. As previously noted, enlightenment is the result of strong mindfulness, and you continue to act mindfully when you’re enlightened: You behave intentionally rather than automatically. Therefore, you improve others’ lives by treating them with compassion. Furthermore, because you no longer chase cravings when you’re enlightened, you harm others less—for instance, you won’t cheat on your partner to pursue your craving for a more exciting relationship.

Cultivating Morality Through the Eightfold Path

The authors of TMI don’t explore in depth how to ensure your enlightened behavior benefits others, but the Eightfold Path—Buddha’s eight steps for achieving enlightenment and living a moral life—provides additional guidance. The steps of the Eightfold Path are:

• Right Speech: Avoiding hurtful speech, such as lies and unkind words

• Right Action: Treating others with love and compassion; abstaining from indulgence

• Right Livelihood: Pursuing work that contributes positively to society

• Right Effort: Eliminating cravings and harmful emotions

• Right Mindfulness: Cultivating mindfulness

• Right Concentration: Cultivating concentration

• Right Understanding: Understanding the Buddha’s teachings

• Right Intention: Cultivating mindsets that help with understanding these teachings

TMI primarily focuses on the fifth and sixth steps, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. The first three steps—Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood—together are called sila (“discipline”), and they concern morality and how you treat others. If you haven’t yet reached enlightenment and therefore still experience cravings that drive you to harm others, sila may offer guidance on minimizing the pain you cause. For instance, the step of Right Speech says that you should only speak when you have something useful and gentle to say, and you should avoid lying and gossiping.

If you’re interested in following the three steps of sila as part of your meditation practice, consider listening to dharma talks about sila or joining a sangha (a community of Buddhist practitioners) that emphasizes cultivating sila.

How to Meditate

Now that we’ve explored what meditation is and how it benefits you and others, we’ll discuss how to meditate effectively. The authors insist that anyone can learn to meditate and achieve enlightenment. Doing so doesn’t require any special skills or background knowledge; it only requires perseverance.

(Shortform note: By emphasizing perseverance, the authors imply that you need a growth mindset to meditate successfully. As Carol Dweck explains in Mindset, a growth mindset is believing you can improve your skills through effort. By contrast, a fixed mindset is believing you’re born with innate, unchangeable abilities (such as an inability to meditate). If you have a fixed mindset, you can replace it with a growth mindset. A strategy Dweck recommends is paying attention to the growth mindset and effort of successful people. For instance, talk to an expert meditator about their meditation journey and note how effort and a growth mindset contributed to their success. This may compel you to apply a growth mindset to meditation.)

In TMI, the authors organize the journey from novice meditator to enlightened meditator into 10 sequential stages. For simplicity, we’ve grouped these stages into four phases. In Phase 1, you’ll focus on building a meditation routine. In Phases 2 and 3, you’ll cultivate strong concentration and mindfulness, respectively. Finally, in Phase 4, you’ll achieve enlightenment.

Phase 1: Build a Meditation Routine

According to the authors, a consistent, regular routine is essential for successful meditation. Meditation is a skill that requires regular practice, like playing basketball: If you don’t establish a daily practice, you might not advance past its early phases.

(Shortform note: Regular practice doesn’t only improve the skill you’re practicing—according to some experts, it also maintains your brain health as you age. When you age, your cognitive skills (such as your memory) weaken, but some research suggests that you can slow down this process by consistently practicing challenging, complex activities.)

We’ll begin this section by describing the basic meditation the authors recommend, which forms the foundation for every session in the four phases. Then, we’ll explore two of the authors' tips for ensuring this basic meditation is one you’ll practice regularly.

The Basic Meditation

Before You Begin the Basic Meditation

According to the authors, any time you sit down to meditate, you must first take time to ease in both physically and mentally. This preparation reduces the chances that you’ll face distracting sensations, thoughts, and feelings during your basic meditation.

(Shortform note: Building mental and physical transition time between tasks may be particularly important for meditators with ADHD: Abrupt transitions can leave people with ADHD feeling tired, frustrated, or discombobulated.)

First, ease into your meditation session physically by finding a stable, comfortable position on a chair or the floor. If you choose the latter, cross your legs or tuck your ankles under your opposite leg’s knee or thigh. These poses provide stability so you’re less likely to adjust your position (which would be distracting). Next, straighten your back so your head and neck are aligned. This position minimizes neck and back pain, which in turn minimizes distraction. Finally, keep your eyes closed, especially if you’re new to meditation—this also makes it easier to avoid distractions.

(Shortform note: A recent study supports the value of closing your eyes while meditating; it found that meditators with closed eyes achieve greater mindfulness than those who meditate with their eyes open.)

Next, the authors recommend mentally preparing for meditation by reflecting on two questions:

• What’s your goal for this meditation session? Setting a small, achievable goal before you meditate (such as “focus on pleasurable sensations”) prevents you from setting an unreasonable goal you’ll have trouble achieving (such as “ignore all distractions”).
• What distractions might get in the way of that goal? For instance, a work-related worry might be likely to distract you. Mentally listing such distractions in advance makes it easier to recognize them as distractions so you can refocus on your focal point.

Additional Advice for Easing Into Your Meditation Session

In Mindfulness in Plain English, Bhante Gunaratana provides additional insights into and tips on easing into your meditation session physically and mentally.

Easing in physically: Gunaratana shares the authors’ view that an effective meditation position prioritizes stability and comfort for the sake of minimizing distractions and that it’s therefore worthwhile to find this position before you begin meditating. Gunaratana provides another reason why keeping a straight back is particularly important: It helps you remain alert, preventing you from falling asleep. He says you can further improve your comfort by removing your shoes and wearing loose clothing when you meditate. Shoes and tight clothes can restrict blood flow in your body, which could produce uncomfortable distractions.

Easing in mentally: In contrast to the authors of TMI, Gunaratana says you should avoid going into a meditation session with any expectations (such as a particular goal). The purpose of meditation, Gunaratana says, is to observe reality—and expectations crowd your mind with ideas and opinions, making it hard to see reality. Instead, treat meditation like an experiment: Simply let the meditation unfold, and don’t worry about what you will or won’t achieve.

If you’re unsure whether to follow Gunaratana’s goal-free approach or the goal-oriented approach that the authors of TMI recommend, sample both approaches. Meditate several times without a goal, then meditate several times with one. Compare your experiences to determine which approach best accomplishes your overall purpose for meditating.

The Five-Step Basic Meditation

Once you’ve eased into your meditation session, you’re ready to begin the basic meditation that you’ll continue practicing through all the phases. According to the authors, this meditation helps you cultivate strong concentration and mindfulness. As previously noted, both of these mental states improve your life and are essential for reaching enlightenment. We’ve organized the authors’ basic meditation into five steps that have you progressively narrow your focal point while maintaining background awareness.

Step 1: Make sensory input in the present moment your focal point while maintaining background awareness of everything else. For instance, focus on the smell of the room and the air’s temperature. If something in your background awareness (anything that’s not sensory input in the present moment) grabs your attention, such as a thought about something on your to-do list, simply notice it. Then, gently return your attention to your focal point.

Step 2: Make bodily sensations your focal point while maintaining background awareness of everything else. For instance, notice your heartbeat. Once again, if something in your background awareness grabs your attention—such as a sound, smell, memory, or thought—simply notice it, then gently return your attention to your focal point.

Step 3: Repeat Step 2, with one difference—make any breath-related sensations your focal point. For instance, notice the feeling of your stomach touching your shirt as you exhale. Keep your breathing natural while doing this.

Step 4: Repeat Step 3, but with a narrower focal point: breath-related sensations in your nose. You may find this easiest if you breathe only through your nose, as the high volume of air passing through your narrow nostrils will produce subtle but noticeable sensations.

Step 5: Maintain Step 4 for the duration of your meditation session (15 or more minutes).

Comparing This Meditation Approach to Another Well-Known Approach

Let’s compare the steps of this meditation to the advice found in one of the best-selling meditation books: Wherever You Go, There You Are (1994) by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Kabat-Zinn is often credited with bringing a secular version of mindfulness meditation to the West. He’s perhaps best known for developing Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), a widely-used program that many experts believe supports mental health.

Kabat-Zinn’s meditation advice sometimes overlaps with that of the authors of TMI:

• Kabat-Zinn also frames meditation as a way to hone your mindfulness skills. He shares the authors’ view that mindfulness is a mental state that will improve your life.

• Like the authors of TMI, Kabat-Zinn identifies your breath as a valuable focal point for cultivating concentration. He says you can direct your attention back to your breath any time your mind wanders.

• The authors of TMI advocate for patience by recommending you always gently redirect your attention back to your breath. Similarly, Kabat-Zinn underscores the importance of patience by saying you should be kind to yourself when your mind wanders.

There are also several key differences between Kabat-Zinn’s approach and that of the authors of TMI. First, Kabat-Zinn argues that there’s no single, correct way to meditate. This perspective contrasts sharply with that of the authors of TMI. They imply that there is a correct way to meditate by providing detailed steps in which you progressively narrow your focal point and by recommending a certain duration for your session.

Second, while the authors of TMI say to focus on sensations in the present moment, some of the meditations Kabat-Zinn recommends have you engage in visualizations. For instance, his “Mountain Meditation” has you imagine a mountain remaining unchanged as seasonal weather surrounds it, then imagining yourself as this mountain.

These key differences may be due to differences in the authors’ beliefs about the purpose of meditation. In TMI, the authors’ emphasis on following a correct approach reflects their belief that meditation is mental training, and their emphasis on staying in the present moment arguably reflects enlightenment’s goal of understanding how life really is. By contrast, Kabat-Zinn makes very few mentions of enlightenment in his book—when he mentions the word, it’s in the colloquial sense, as an adjective for “awareness.” His de-emphasis of enlightenment suggests that he sees mindfulness itself as the purpose of meditation, hence why his method doesn’t include strict instructions on meeting a certain goal or meditating in a certain way—simply achieving mindfulness is enough.

Tips for Building a Successful Meditation Routine

Tip 1: Schedule Daily Meditation Time

According to the authors, the best way to ensure you meditate regularly is to schedule daily meditation time. When you’re new to meditation, aim for 15-minute sessions. After a week or two, increase this duration by five minutes every few days until you’ve exceeded 45 minutes.

Additionally, the authors recommend scheduling your meditation session at the same time every day—this makes it an automatic habit. By contrast, if you leave the time of your meditation session up to how you’re feeling, you might procrastinate or avoid it altogether. Pick and stick with a time of day when you’re typically alert and calm so that you don’t fall asleep or get distracted by frantic thoughts. Then, once you’ve picked the ideal time to meditate, protect it: Don’t schedule other commitments at that time.

Tip 2: Make Meditation Enjoyable

If you find it hard to maintain a daily meditation routine, you may assume you’re undisciplined and need stricter routines. However, the authors insist that strict discipline will associate meditation with negative feelings, which will make you avoid it.

Instead, see your struggle to maintain a routine as a sign that you need motivation. To boost your motivation, make meditation more enjoyable so you’ll want to meditate daily. One way to do so is to find meditation-related inspiration: Talk to experts, listen to a podcast about meditating, and research the benefits of meditation. Another option is to fixate on feelings of pleasure while meditating. For instance, enjoy the feeling of calmness you experience. You’ll start looking forward to meditating so you can re-experience these pleasures.

The Behavioral Science Behind the Authors’ Tips

The tips the authors share for maintaining a daily meditation routine correspond to aspects of the Fogg Behavior Model, a habit formation theory that behavioral scientist BJ Fogg shares in Tiny Habits. Fogg’s model sheds light on why the tips from the authors of TMI may be effective, and Fogg offers additional insights that may support your meditation routine.

According to the Fogg Behavioral Model, you only engage in a behavior when three conditions are met: 1) You’re motivated to do the behavior, 2) you have the ability to succeed at the behavior, and 3) you’re prompted to succeed. Fogg represents this idea with the formula B = MAP, where B is Behavior, M is Motivation, A is Ability, and P is Prompt. Let’s explore how the authors of TMI address each of these letters in Fogg’s model.

Behavior: Fogg argues that you’re more likely to complete a behavior if it’s specific. The more specific a behavior is, the easier it is to design targeted strategies that support it. When the authors of TMI recommend meditating for 15 to 45 minutes at the same time every day, they’re proposing a specific behavior. Therefore, if you find yourself straying from this specificity with vague goals—such as “meditate as often as possible”—return to the authors’ specific suggestion for timed, scheduled, daily meditation.

Motivation: The authors of TMI address motivation with their recommendation to deemphasize discipline in favor of seeking out motivating pleasure and inspiration. Fogg adds that it’s normal for motivation to fluctuate as you’re building a behavior. Therefore, don’t judge yourself harshly if your motivation wanes—doing so leads to shame, which zaps motivation.

Ability: Fogg offers three strategies for ensuring you’re able to complete a behavior; let’s see how the authors of TMI address these three strategies.

• Make the behavior itself easier. The authors of TMI advocate for this when they suggest working up to 45-minute sessions gradually and meditating only when your mind is alert and calm.

• Design your environment so the behavior is easier. The authors of TMI insist that you stick with and protect your chosen meditation time. This is a suggestion to design your environment—specifically, the structure of your day.

• Improve your abilities. We’ll cover the authors of TMI’s recommendation on how to improve your meditation skills next. You might also improve your abilities by joining a meditation community and meeting with a dharma teacher (a trained meditation teacher) who provides feedback and coaching.

Prompt: The authors of TMI address this last condition by recommending that you always meditate at the same time every day—the time is the prompt that reminds you to meditate. If this isn’t enough of a prompt for you, consider Fogg’s suggestion to design a “context prompt”: something in your environment that reminds you to engage in a behavior. For example, set a daily, recurring alarm that alerts you when it’s time to meditate.

Phase 2: Achieve Strong Concentration

Once you’ve established a meditation routine that you regularly follow, it’s time to improve your meditation skills. In this second phase, you’ll work on achieving strong concentration—and to do so, you must overcome the habit of daydreaming (what the authors call “mind-wandering”). Daydreaming is when something in your background awareness captures your attention, causing you to lose concentration on your breath. For instance, the sound of a distant lawn mower might remind you that you need to mow your lawn, which might remind you of all your other chores—and before you know it, you’ve forgotten your breath.

During this phase, aim to minimize daydreaming so it never lasts more than several seconds per meditation session. (Shortform note: If you can limit your daydreaming duration to several seconds per 15- to 45-minute session, you’ll arguably be significantly less prone to daydreaming than the average person—at least while you’re meditating. One study found that people spend nearly half of their waking hours daydreaming.)

Let’s explore two of the authors’ tips for overcoming daydreaming.

Tip 1: Use Positive Reinforcement

When you meditate and you begin daydreaming, there’s typically a moment when you suddenly realize your mind has wandered. The authors explain that the seconds leading up to this moment aren’t in your conscious control. So how do you consciously try to minimize daydreaming when realizing you’re daydreaming is an unconscious process?

According to the authors, by using positive reinforcement, you can consciously train your subconscious mind while meditating. Any time you’re meditating and you suddenly realize you’ve been daydreaming, enjoy it. Congratulate yourself for having this revelation and delight in how it feels to be present again. Over time, this repetitive positive reinforcement will train your subconscious mind to awaken from daydreaming more frequently.

Train Your Subconscious Mind Outside of Meditation

By following the ideas of author Joseph Murphy, you may be able to use positive reinforcement to consciously train your subconscious mind outside of meditation, too.

In The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, Murphy says that your subconscious mind pushes you to behave in certain ways by guiding your intuition. You can influence how your subconscious guides your behavior by controlling your conscious thoughts. When you repeatedly have positive conscious thoughts, those thoughts leave positive impressions on your subconscious. As a result, your subconscious guides you to pursue positive experiences via your intuition.

For example, Murphy says that when you visualize what you want in detail, you leave a strong, positive imprint on your subconscious mind. As a result, your subconscious mind will guide you to act in ways that make you more likely to achieve what you want.

Tip 2: Categorize Your Thoughts

A second way to overcome daydreaming is to categorize all of your thoughts (a practice the authors call “labeling”). Categorizing a thought as soon as it surfaces prevents it from continuing or evolving into a new thought. This interruption halts your daydreaming so you can return to concentrating on your breath.

Additionally, make these categories neutral—this prevents you from judging your thought as “good,” or “bad,” which might spawn more thoughts about its goodness or badness. For instance, mentally reviewing your chores is “list-making”, remembering yesterday’s weather is “recalling”, and thinking about how to ask your boss for a raise is “brainstorming.”

(Shortform note: The authors’ emphasis on making categories neutral echoes a lesson in Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, a foundational text of Taoism (a Chinese philosophy). Lao Tzu says that you should refrain from categorizing your surroundings and other people as “good” or “bad,” and he adds that such categorization warps how you see reality. For example, if you think of the city as “bad” and the countryside as “good,” you might begin to view everything associated with the countryside (like its people and industries) as bad. Instead, Lao Tzu says you should strive to be objective by embracing all experiences and relishing the present moment.)

Phase 3: Achieve Strong Mindfulness

So far, we’ve discussed how to achieve strong concentration while meditating. As previously noted, strong concentration is half of mindfulness—the other half is strong background awareness. In this phase, you’ll strengthen your background awareness while still maintaining strong concentration on your breath.

According to the authors, your background awareness is strong when you can continuously and neutrally observe your mind (an ability the authors call “metacognitive introspective awareness”). This involves keeping track of your thoughts, your emotions, and your perceptions of and reactions to external stimuli. We’ll call this process mind-watching.

Mind-watching develops your ability to maintain some distance from your thoughts and emotions. This allows you to be more objective so you can respond to situations intentionally rather than rashly or emotionally. Recall our earlier example of mindfully listening to your child tell you a story from her school day: Strong background awareness made you objectively aware of and distant from your frustration, preventing you from snapping at your child. All the while, you continued listening to your focal point (your child’s story)—the result of strong concentration. You then responded to your daughter intentionally.

To practice mind-watching through meditation, constantly monitor your thoughts, feelings, and reactions to stimuli while still maintaining concentration on your breath. This is like the aforementioned strategy of categorizing, except you categorize constantly instead of only in response to distractions. This keeps you in “analysis” mode rather than “feeling” mode, ensuring that you keep some objective distance from your thoughts and emotions.

For example, say you’re meditating and you notice the cool temperature of the air in your nose (a result of strong concentration). You observe the effect this has on your mind: It makes you feel calm. Then, you hear a sound in the distance (external stimuli), and you notice its effect on you—it prompts a strong visualization of your childhood home. You categorize this thought as a memory, then you categorize the effect this memory has on your emotions: It makes you feel happy. You’re not probing deeper into these thoughts and feelings by asking why the air makes you calm, wondering what produced the sound, or thinking more about your childhood. You’re simply noticing and categorizing.

Mindfulness Outside of Meditation

The authors of TMI focus on describing how to achieve strong mindfulness while meditating, but they don’t explore in depth how to do so outside of meditation. Therefore, it may be difficult to experience the benefits associated with mindfulness at times when you can’t meditate—for instance, if you’re in a difficult meeting at work and want to respond mindfully, but can’t step away for an impromptu meditation session. Let’s discuss how you might achieve mindfulness in a scenario like this.

According to some psychologists, anxiety-provoking moments—such as giving a performance—are an opportune time to tap into mindfulness. In these situations, you’re likely to have negative thoughts, such as “I’m going to fail.” Reframe the thought using a technique called self-distancing that helps quiet strong emotions (like anxiety). Think to yourself, “I’m having the thought that I’m going to fail.” Like categorizing, this technique involves objectively analyzing your thoughts rather than ruminating on them.

In Wherever You Go, There You Are, Jon Kabat-Zinn also investigates how to achieve mindfulness in everyday life. Like the authors of TMI, Kabat-Zinn says that mindfulness involves objective mind-watching—you watch your thoughts without judging or influencing them. He offers the following suggestions for practicing mindfulness in daily life:

• Notice your breath sensations. Like the authors of TMI, Kabat-Zinn describes the breath as a focal point to return to any time your mind wanders. Because your breath is always with you, you can turn your attention to it anywhere, anytime.

• Be mindful during specific moments. Identify everyday actions, such as every time you open a door, and vow to pay full attention to the present in those moments.

Phase 4: Achieve Enlightenment

Once you’ve achieved strong mindfulness, you’ve built the foundation for achieving enlightenment. As discussed, experiencing the five realizations is crucial to experiencing enlightenment. The authors say that you’ll eventually do so as you continue practicing mindfulness. Recall that realizations reveal the truth of reality—since mindfulness is about observing what’s really happening in the present, it primes the mind to experience these realizations.

The authors elaborate that you can’t consciously bring about these realizations, but strong mindfulness makes them more likely to occur. For instance, closely following your breath or watching your mind may lead you to realize that every sensation and emotion is constantly changing. This may prompt the realization of impermanence.

(Shortform note: The idea that you can’t consciously bring about realizations may make meditation feel challenging: Perhaps you’ll feel impatient to experience these realizations. It may help to recall the authors’ earlier assertion that strong concentration and mindfulness are themselves beneficial. Therefore, you can enjoy the journey to enlightenment—even if it’s long. Remember that strong concentration strengthens your ability to be in the present, and strong mindfulness allows you to behave intentionally. One meditator who documented their journey implementing the advice in TMI corroborates some of these benefits: They say that practicing strong concentration made their daily life beyond meditation feel noticeably more peaceful.)

The Realization That Prompts Enlightenment

While all five realizations are necessary for enlightenment, the fifth realization, selflessness, prompts it. You realize there’s no “you” to suffer, so you experience freedom from suffering.

Because you can’t control exactly when any realizations (including the fifth realization) occur, you can’t control exactly when enlightenment happens. However, the authors insist that you can make enlightenment likely to happen. Do this by persevering in your practice, learning new strategies, and making meditation as enjoyable as possible.

Enlightenment and the Ego Illusion

The authors of TMI aren’t the only people to discuss the benefits of accepting selflessness. In The Book, philosopher Alan Watts similarly explores the upsides of abandoning the idea of a separate “I,” which he calls the ego illusion. Watts notes that this illusion is a pervasive idea in Western society, specifically.

Watts suggests that Western society will improve if more people overcome the ego illusion (through achieving enlightenment, for instance). He argues that the illusion has disastrous consequences for Westerners, Western society, and beyond. It makes Westerners feel lonely and separate from nature, makes them perpetually unsatisfied, and leads to conflict with others. Applying Watt’s ideas to those found in TMI, a Westerner who experiences the fifth realization and reaches enlightenment will arguably feel more connected and satisfied, and they’ll be less likely to perpetuate harm.

Furthermore, Watt’s suggestions for overcoming the ego illusion could make enlightenment more likely, since enlightenment requires the dissolution of the ego. For instance, Watts says that prioritizing enjoyment for the sake of enjoyment helps dissolve the ego. When you do things to experience happiness, rather than to advance selfish goals (such as being “the best”), your ego begins fading. This could make experiencing the fifth realization more likely, in turn making enlightenment more likely.