Meta Cognition Framework

MIA -- Metacognitive Introspective Awareness -- is the ability to be aware of the state and activity of the mind continuously. That is, the awareness of the mind as the mind carries on with doing something, e.g. watching the breath

This is a favorite concept from The Mind Illuminated, one of my favorite mindfulness books. In other words, watching the mind as the mind watches the breath.

Doing this over and over again, I have noticed an interesting framework to categorize your thoughts and mind-wanderings while meditating, or even in day to day life. We assign 3 properties to each thought that mindlessly pops up:

• Time: is it about the past, the future, or present?
• Feeling: Is it a feeling of aversion or craving for something?
• Subject: Is it about you, or the outer world.

Based on this, one could build a 3 dimensional space for thoughts, where you have.

I was expecting to write this bit for myself with a conclusion to assert that a peaceful state of mind is one that is always in the center of this chart, but I am less sure about that and leave that open. Nonetheless the framework has been very useful to me in developing further MIA.