PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

Rosch: Meditation and Basic Cognitive Processes 43Interdependence also has societal implications. The mandate for designingpsychological experiments virtually demands that the form of theargument be posed as an opposition between single rival factors: natureversus nurture, form versus function. This is part of a general culturalpattern: our legal system, press reporting, talk shows, contests—all tend tobe set up in terms of single oppositions. Anthropologist Deborah Tannencalls this “the argument culture,” of which the United States is an extremeexample. 28 Not all cultures see things this way. Many legal systemsemphasize mediation rather than adversarial procedures. Talk shows inJapan typically feature several speakers with a panorama of viewpointswho seek to come to a mutual understanding in the discussion. The conceptof deep ecology originated in the Scandinavian countries. And in recentsocial psychology 29 a general cultural attitude called “naive dialecticism”has been identified as characteristic of Chinese thought in which humanand natural characteristics are considered the product of ever-changingmultiple circumstances, rather than as fixed, and in which compromise isconsidered a cognitive as well as social virtue which leads not only to socialharmony, but to truth. We think of the way we structure scientific debateand experimentation as inherent to having an objective science; might itinstead be the product of a particular cultural metaphysic?There is a tendency for academics to blame the simplistic thinking inpublic life on a lack of reasoning ability in ordinary people. If religion isthought of at all, it is usually considered part of the problem. What we aresuggesting here is that simplistic oppositional thinking is engendered bythe absence of awareness and can be cured by the development of agenuinely meditative and contemplative sensibility in which enrichingawareness need not to be seen as confusing or fearful.III. MAGNETIZING: INSPIRING, UNIFYINGA. Directness: Unmediated, RealNow that many things have been brought together under the purviewof enriched awareness—magnetism! In sociology this principle is sometimescalled “meeting and mating.” You look at a picture, read a book, doresearch on a project . . . and suddenly you get it. It happens. It’s all theretogether at once. Here we have the third Buddha activity, that of magnetizing.When the mind, its objects, and the other polarities of life are joinedfully together with nothing left over, a new mode of direct knowing canblossom. We could call it direct experience.Unbiased knowing may sound abstract or removed from experience,but mindful observation reveals that it is consciousness which appearsabstract, filtered as it is through the dualism of subject and object and theensuing tangle of memories, wishes, narrative, biography, and