The default mode network (DMN), or self referential processing
When we take up a mindfulness or Buddhist meditation practice, we exercise a number of mental faculties. One of the things we try to do is tamp down default mode processing, both with formal training and informal practices like attending directly to experience. When we attend to our tactile sense of the body, we also build empathy and become more sensitive to and aware in real time, of our feelings that happen in our body and drive our base emotions.
A big part of training is tamping down this default mode processing and setting up an alternate default mode that involves the experiential system or bare awareness, this network is linked to the senses and they operate in real time as do our senses, hence present moment awareness. When we are in this experiential mode of mental operation we have a quiet mind as the default, the evaluative, judgmental and self referential parts of our minds are suppressed. Thinking is brought online as required and is usually the planning, logical variety. The more advanced we are as meditators, the more we can suppress this default self referential network, the awakened apparently can shut it down permanently and just bring online those parts that are actually useful. Self referential processing is a big part of the suffering component of dukkha and when it goes awry, it can lead to depression ADHD and other mental issues.
So the focus of our training is to tamp down the DMN, the monkey mind, we see it operating clearly when we are sitting in practice and as we gain more experience, we see it operating more clearly off the cushion too. Mindfulness a form of meta-cognition allows us to see the DMN in action and intervene by redirecting our attention to our senses. We most often try to direct our senses to our bodies and feel them, both in practice and when doing simple tasks. Say we are in the shower, we catch our mind in default mode and redirect our attention to being where we are and doing what we are doing, while feeling the soap and wash cloth on our skin and attending to that. Thus we break the habit of default mode processing and shut the network down more and more over time. This is the big picture of a big part of what we do in practice and how progress in measured.
Another thing that happens is that our experiential network becomes coupled, or tangled up with our evaluative network as a natural reaction to stress. When we practice we can decouple these two networks over time and we don't have the automaticity of thinking, judging and evaluating everything that enters the senses or mind. This kind of thinking is always done in reference to ourselves and reifies our sense of self as a means of social and psychological survival.
We develop mindfulness using mind/body meditative exercises and this allows us to connect to our bodies and see what emotional state is driving us. Mindfulness also allows us to remember to look and the ability to see our thoughts then intervene, by directing our attention to a real time sensory input, usually a tactile one, to build empathy too. Establishing mindfulness with formal practice allows us to move our practice off the cushion and into our lives by helping us to see our minds operating consciously. Then remembering to redirect our attention to the senses, when we are caught up in thought. This also extends into our morality training as we catch our thoughts and feelings then intervene while under the influence of increased empathy.
This is a big part of our training, establishing mindfulness and moment to moment awareness of our thoughts and feelings along with increased empathy. Then skillfully intervening to redirect the contents of our consciousness by suppressing the DMN, the home of social and emotional suffering. We break a habit by not doing it and the DMN acts like a habit and can be broken by not engaging with it. If there is a Devil, the DMN is his home!
https://www.psychologytoday.com/.../default-mode-network
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