While mindfulness requires diligent effort towards directing the gaze of conscious awareness towards the content of the present moment arising in consciousness, a phenomenological analysis requires much more psychologically rooted tools to perform at a truth revealing level (optimal/accurate/useful in degrees). While we can acquire the benefits of mindfulness through attention to the present, the requirements for a phenomenological analysis require intellectual clarity, knowledge of various scientific disciplines, non-contradictory logical reasoning, causal intuition, time and diligence directed by the mental gaze towards an authentic unravelling of the structure of the psyche, in short they require the ability to concentrate and pursue abstract correlates in their relation to the manifest contents discovered in mindfulness. This necessarily entails work, time, and discipline if one is to uncover the essential foundations for the noeses from which the noema (Husserl’s Terminology) are correlated and initially perceived as inextricably connected.

I wish to pursue the meaning, the noeses, the mode of Being, and its essential attributes for an experiential noema of, namely: entering into a Vipassana present moment meditation (Basic Vipassana Meditation). Now, first and foremost, I must recognize that the experience is of a specific differentiated nature, meaning, that I recognize my transition into a mode of awareness directed upon the present moment which is distinctly different from the previous mode of being, for which I conceptualize in my phenomenological analysis as an experience of mindfulness meditation. The goal for me, here, is to recognize the essence of the mode of Being which enabled and embodied such a subjective experience, and to uncover why.

First I analyze the situation for what it is, through recollection in memory and reflection upon the experiential content. Once I have clearly in mind the content I was experiencing in conscious awareness at the time of the period of mindfulness, I can circumnavigate the experience to get a clear view of the noema with which we are interested in attaining the correlated noesis. The multiple perspective exploration which ensues is the part of the work we must undergo to get a clear and authentic representation of the content. Here a reliance on clear, judgmental, unbiased memory is a preferred indifferent to us, as certain acts of reflection we may be unable to untangle from the truth of the matter. It is preferred in that it directly relates to an optimal outcome, and indifferent in that we recognize that the ability to do so is inherent in our intellectual capacities, and may…unfortunately…be out of our control in the time being, yet ultimately able to be improved through persistence and experience in performing phenomenological analyses, as well as with the increase of wisdom and knowledge in related mental faculties (logic / reason / intellectual concentration). To be able to perform such an endeavor we must “bracket” the “natural world” as described by Husserl, the degree to which we are able to separate the influence of a natural standpoint, or the unmindful mode of being, is crucial to the accuracy of the conclusion acquired. The amount of clarity in our recollection, and the resistance to any narrating and “Ego” driven defining of the content of the noema enable us to better or worse produce a clear, more accurate phenomenological result.

With the noema defined and held in our conscious gaze, that of the Vipassana mediation experience, we probe into our intuition to disclose what the intentionality of the acts performed in the noema are stemming from, or how the noematic content relates to the noetic content, their connection and formulation. For what purpose did we pursue such activity? From what mode of Being did it stem from? Why would we spend time doing such an act? Obviously the answer to these questions are differentiated in response to the individual, his circumstances, and the specific noema in space and time in which we are analyzing. Thus, my uncovering of the phenomena of mindfulness is related to this singular experience, and the work put in is towards the end in direct regard to that singular experience. The results therefore disclose information related to that mode of being intuited as being preliminary and underlying to the noema, but, also, they disclose a possible mode of being which can generally be stated as being able to manifest across the realm of future experience. While we discover the noesis of that singular noema in the analysis, we recognize it as an integral part of our psyche, and thus as having the potential of emerging again as a correlate to any future experience, and more specifically to acts of similar nature to the one inquired upon.

The intentionality in the case described is personally intuited in conceptualizations (word representations of “real” phenomena) based upon our acquired total synthesis of Being, containing specific knowledge with which the individual utilizes in his description and exploration of the phenomenological correlates to the experience. Language and its epistemology in regards to the individual is therefore an important aspect of any abstraction. Different perspectives and explanations are possible as being uncovered, as all being parts of the whole correlated explanation of the mode of Being relevant. Thus, we can expect always a partial conclusion, as the limit of knowledge and the kind of representation used (definition of words used in conceptualization is varied according to the individual). In my personal case I concluded, after work towards unravelling, a number of intuitions which may partially constitute the nature of the noeses underlying the phenomena of Vipassana meditation, in its manifestation and presentation in memory discovered by myself. The implications of such findings, and their relevancy towards further explanation across multiple disciplines, is later to be expounded upon.

I here wish to expound my personal findings to explore what I found, the implications, again, will later be preliminarily sketched out. In looking towards the intention I intuited that a mode of being of intentionality was prevalent throughout the experience. The conscious thought arose in which directed my being towards actualizing a mindfulness practice, and thus I habitually followed previous attempts at actualizing a Vipassana mediation, as I have up to this point acquired. The sitting still, eyes closed, and directing of the gaze into the present moment followed this consciously directed thought of wishing to perform a Vipassana meditation. Attention was focused upon the fleeting, transient contents of consciousness as it presented an awareness of perceptions of sensations and sensory content such as hearing, bodily pressure upon the chair, thoughts used in describing the present, attention brought to non-conceptually arising observation of the breath, sounds, feeling. I witnessed thoughts appear, I witnessed attention change. In retrospect there was always a content to which I could possibly be attentive to, although for brief moments my initial intention of pursuing a constant awareness of the present moment (a general guideline for Vipassana) was broken by forgetfulness of the practice as a thought or mental formation hindered my remembrance of the practice, but eventually was brought back to the attention upon the task at hand of being mindful. The variation in the content of consciousness in pursuing itself, varied in accuracy as it drifted between the awareness of the present, and non-awareness of its own content. These two poles make up a general description of the noema from start (that of entering into the mode of being) to end (that of exiting the mode of being and transitioning to a phenomenological analysis of the noema which had passed). The noema has been roughly, simply, conceptualized.

As there was a content connected to consciousness, there is a content of the underlying mode of being, the noesis, to that noema. Where consciousness was intent on pursuing Vipassana meditation, why was it pursuing Vipassana meditation? The answer lies in a multitude of phenomenological reasons relating to the nature of the mode of being which so desires such an experience (Phenomenology of Desire). This desire we will later expound upon. Several I will here explore as being uncovered in intuitional analyses. The mode of being is characterized by a will for character development, for becoming a better person, embodying the virtues with which to act upon in an optimal way for said character development. Upon investigation I discovered that from a doxological perspective (of my inherent intellectual belief structure) that I believe the pursuit of mindfulness to be relating and influential towards the goal of the improvement of character. Thus, part of the noetic content making up the whole noesis isn’t only of intentionality constitution, but also of doxic positionality (my Being’s relation to what I believe). I, through whatever reason (a causal chain of connectivity leads to our current belief structure), also hold as high in my meaning structure, or value hierarchy, the pursuit of character development (probably a conceptually acquired content stemming from content such as experiential knowledge and practical evaluation of Aristotle’s Nichomechean Ethics).  Thus, the mode of being described as character development has revealed itself as containing noetic content of intentionality, doxic positionality (my relation to my beliefs), and value pursuit (my pursuit of a value which I have personally acquired as something hierarchical more important to me than other experiences). The result of such content in experience being the actualization of the underlying desire for character development manifest in the Vipassana meditation noema which I experienced.

Now we look to analyze why I contain such a doxic, value, and intentional structure. While the noema, the experience itself, is put into the highest position of concreteness, a relation to the recollection in the awareness of the memory of the experience would be in the second order of concreteness (it loses something of the initial concrete experience in the conceptual and mental formation), and in the third dimension of abstraction we have intuited the noetic structure which we believe to underlie the initial 1st dimension experience based upon the 2nd dimension experience (of recollection). The 3rd dimensional conceptual abstraction defines parts of the contents of the noesis available to us through the 2nd dimension and is itself able to be subject to phenomenological analyses, just as much as any other noema. But that’s a side note just to convey two things, namely, that each step in the phenomenological analyses is itself a moment which can be phenomenologically analyzed in its own noematic content, and also from that to conclude that the limit of content available to be phenomenologically analyzed is thus limitless in extension.

Continuing down our analysis we enter a 4th dimension of analysis, as to what purpose the noesis, the mode of being, which contains (in our partial exploration) the content of the underlying mode of being producing the noema, is itself produced by. To this we must enter into much broader and more profound territory, the full exploration of requires much scientific insight, and the space of which is open to further investigation in the fields of sociology, evolutionary biology, formal biology, psychology, and philosophy. As Merleau Ponty points out, there are many senses to which a phenomenon gives, multiple significant attributes that are interrelated and constituting of the phenomenon, many interrelated perspectives from which to gaze upon it, all of which simultaneously constitute the phenomena, yet we can find, that some give a broader defining of its characteristics than others do, although, in actuality, they cannot be separated. On a basic level it is an automatic habitual intuition, for me, to explain the noetic content thus described in evolutionary biological terms. Underlying all intentionality and modes of being, and in their modification, and their discovered content, is a persistent desire on behalf of the organism which I find myself as (Dasein (thrown)), as well as the genetic makeup, to “desire” (in affect) to preserve itself, recreate itself, and accurately recreate itself. By desire here in quotations we are referring to the biological correlate of the anthropomorphic sense of desire and its synonymous connotation of “willing/wanting/striving”, which, in effect, is attempting to achieve something. While we can view acquisition of character traits and thus modes of being underlying them in part to society, culture, past experience, the circumstances, time; I initially look towards the concrete and most fundamental underlying substratum for my personal exploration of this 4th dimension. This biological “desire” evolutionarily is beneficial in its manifestation in the mode of being of character development in that, (I believe), through making myself a better person I can better navigate existence (insight into nature of reality through Vipassana), enabling me to become a stronger, wiser individual (in my reduction of suffering and improving of wellbeing). This biological “desire” underlying the manifestation of the mode of being of character development also simultaneously allows the individual to be better able to avoid death, sickness, injury, in short, that which is contrary to the continuation of my genetic material, and necessarily the individual with which I am. The preservation and safety of the genome is thus satisfied in this explanation. Also, the second characteristic of genetic “purpose”, the procreation and replication of the genetic material, find their explanation in the noema and its coinciding noesis. By embodying what the individual believes to be character enhancing he is simultaneously embarking to become a more viable candidate for procreation, in thus manifesting the mode of being previously described, the individual (in my case unconsciously, yet consciously uncovered) “believes” (proof through action)  in the pursuit of such activities which are produced by a character development mode of being, as being themselves tools towards character development and thus to the replication of his genes. This satisfies the second requirement in the biological imperative.

This rudimentary exploration towards the phenomenological underpinnings of a specific noematic experience is far from conclusive, but has provided information towards which I can use to understand how and why and from what mode of being the content of my experience is possible to be originating in. The conscious pursuit of ever more accurate descriptions of such a nature, indeed the meaning as to why the entire phenomenological investigation can be performed, is found in the insights gleaned by our own self-examination and realization, as well as has its utilization in the various scientific fields; psychology, biology, as well as obviously philosophy. With logic, reason, and intuition as our guides, following a phenomenological methodology, we are able to piece together the underlying characterizations of modes of being from a reduction from the “things themselves” experientially in any given noema. As the intuitions are discovered philosophically, the deeper explorations and explanations of the questions it is able to discover are thus open to pursuance by the various scientific disciplines. The verification of initial insights, the pursuit of answers to novel questions discovered in phenomenological analysis, and the subjective revelation of objective truths intuitive through persistent work in phenomenological analysis is something which can benefit anyone who contains the psychic imperative to seek the truth. The intentionality behind such an imperative leaves itself open to important and necessary research, across various disciplines, of which the answers can be valuable in their usefulness and beneficiality for us all (I believe).