Mindfulness alone is not enough. In ancient Buddhist and Stoic philosophical schools it was accompanied by investigation into nature of the process of life.

1. PHILOSOPHICAL AND MEDITATIVE ENQUIRY
Cross-cultural adventures in Buddhist insight meditation
Dr Marcin Fabjański

2. ATTUNING TO THE PROCESS OF LIFE
•Two categories of stoic
techniques:
•(i) Attending to the process of
thinking (prohairesis)
•(ii) Attending to the senses
(prosoche)
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3. ATTENDING TO THE PROCESS OF THINKING
”But you ought when you are alone to call this
condition by the name of tranquility and freedom,
and to think yourself like to the gods; and when
you are with many, you ought not to call it crowd,
nor trouble, nor uneasiness, but festival and
assembly, and so accept all contentedly.”
EPICTETUS
”In a joint philosophical investigation he who
is defeated comes out ahead in so far as he
has learnt something new.”
EPICURUS
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4. ATTENDING TO THE PROCESS OF THINKING
• „Acquire the contemplative way of
seeing how all things change into one
another, and constantly attend to it, and
exercise thyself about this part of
philosophy. For nothing else is so much
adapted to produce magnanimity.”
• MARCUS AURELIUS
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5. „Motions and changes are continually
renewing the world, just as the uninterrupted
course of time is always renewing the infinite
duration of ages. In this flowing stream then,
on which there is no abiding, what is there of
the things which hurry by on which a man
would set a high price?
It would be just as if a man should fall in
love with one of the sparrows which fly by,
but it has already passed out of sight”.
MARCUS AURELIUS
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marcin fabjański

6. Daniel Goleman: ethical questions and questions about
purpose come to us as gut feelings. The frontal lobe is not
the author of our decisions, it is the interpreter, which
translates them from the body language into the language of
words and mental pictures.
The untranslated emotions and sensations in the body
appear to us as wild and irrational.
The body is a part of the environment and subject to its law.
The question is: can we learn the language of nature, which
by neccesity is the language beyond self?

7. PRICE OF IMMORTALITY
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9. Requirements for the Language Beyond Self
The LBS should be: (1) meaningful, (2) enriching our
communicative field (provide new informations), and (3)
possible to share.
(4) It should modify our map of reality.
Peter Falk - Der Himmel Uber Berlin (Wings of Desire) , 1987.mp4

10. Observing process of life within and outside. Learning
its universal characteristic of constant flux
Acquire the contemplative way of seeing
how all things change into one another,
and constantly attend to it, and exercise
thyself about this part of philosophy. For
nothing else is so much adapted to produce
magnanimity.
MARCUS AURELIUS

11. Questioning self as our identity by studying
and exercising our co-dependence to the rest
of the process of life.

13. RESEARCH ON BEING IN NATURE
1. Brain gets reset: two weeks in nature gives city
people new sense of calm and clarity and increases
their creativity.
2. 20 minuts of tree watching decreases cortisol level
in saliva by 13.4 percent (260 people, 24 locations) –
relaxation.
3. Being in woods leads to involving all senses, which
activates optimal state of learning – intelligence.
4. One hour in the forest increases attention span by
20 percent – concentration.
5. When injected with a strain of bacteria
Mycobacterium Vaccae (occurs in soil) mice twice as
quickly move in a maze – intelligence.
6. Tree view shortens hospitalisation – mobilization.

15. SEVEN FACTORS OF AWAKENING
1. Sati - mindfulness, clarity.
2. Dhamma vicaya - investigation, intelligence,
creativity.
3. Viriya - energy, mobilization.
4. Pīti – joy.
5. Passadhi - happiness, relaxation.
6. Samādhi - concentration, calm.
7. Upekkhā – equanimity.

16. COMPARISON
1. Brain gets reset: two weeks in nature gives city people new
sense of samādhi and sati and increases vicaya.
2. 20 minuts of tree watching decreases cortisol level in saliva
by 13.4 percent (260 people, 24 locations) – passadhi.
3. Being in woods leads to involving all senses, which activates
optimal state of learning – vicaya.
4. One hour in the forest increases attention span by 20 percent
– samādhi.
5. When injected with a strain of bacteria Mycobacterium
Vaccae (occurs in soil) mice twice as quickly move in a maze –
vicaya.
6. Tree view shortens hospitalisation – viriya.

17. QUESTIONS ARISEN
1. Is morality interwoven into fabric of life?
2. Is awakened mind less simulating the
world, or not simulating it at all?
3. Does nature reveals paticcasamuppāda?
4. Does nature fullfil the Stoic promise that
conversion (freedom from passions, lit.
return to the source) is inscribed into it?

18. Learning the Language Beyond Self:
Practicing the art of conscious designing of our emotional
landscape, such as Buddhist mettā practice.
Developing natural approach to meditation and mindful,
investigative presence in nature. Avoiding mechanical,
forceful means: instead of remaining yourself to „be
mindful”, ask „how attention is present in my body?”
Studying virtues. Living by them. Finding joy in morality.
Using the produced competence in communicating with
others.

19. A Stoic meets a Buddhist
Most conflicts are of mental character and are self-
inflicted and self-sustained (by storylines). We need
to find a place of peace within ourselves beyond all
conflicts, thus beyond self. I call the place – “the
unaffected”. This will enable cross-cultural
communication.
Returning to “the unaffected” by frequent exercises
in daily life. Observing conflicts and inner dialogue
with “the unaffected” in background.
Forrest Gump - Run Scene.mp4

20. While walking:
(1) Separate sensations from emotions,
(2) Separate the preassure of gravitation from the preassure
which is an efect of spinning thughts or of heaviness of
the clinging awareness,
(3) Ask yourself: what preasurre is due to gravitation and
what due to the inner tension?,
(4) Activate discovering awareness, evenly distributed
throughout the body,
(5) Find the unaffected, see emerging of a new reality.

21. EARTH WATER
Retrieving the body from the self and returning it to the nature:
Getting into the range (a part of us must be a receiver).
Using the four elements to dissolve the cloud of thoughts and
mental pictures.
The self cannot function outside the world of compact objects.
WIND FIRE

22. The ATTUNEMENT training consist of three areas:
(1) Mastering thinking process and developing awareness of storylines,
(2) Refreshing outer and inner perceptions by means of introspection
and attuning to the sensory stimuli,
(3) Philosophical enquiry into existential issues from the position of the
metaphysics of process.

23. The less a system (individual consciousness, organized
religion, political party, etc…) is in touch with the process of
life, the more it defends its personal identity; the more
anxiety it contains; the more obsessive with itself it
becomes.
Is a culture of attunement to the process of life possible to
Europe as a philosophical foundation for its future?
The philosophy of ATTUNING TO THE PROCESS OF
LIFE – observations & possibilities

24. You know that you are attuned to the
process of life when the sound of the
falling rain drops fully satisfies your
need of dramaturgy.
Storylines become meaningless.

25. Dr Marcin Fabjański
marcin@selfoff.cm
www.selfoff.com/en
+ 48 508 748 709