Meditating, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman's book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, covers Kahneman and Tversky's groundbreaking research into cognitive biases and other topics.

From Wikipedia:
"The central thesis is a dichotomy between two modes of thought: "System 1" is fast, instinctive and emotional; "System 2" is slower, more deliberative, and more logical."

System 1 refers to behaviors that are essentially hard-wired, acquired either innately or by well practiced learning.

It struck me that meditation practice operates between these two poles.  We begin by using System 2 to deliberately train the mind to become more aware and relaxed.  Over time, and with enough high quality practice, the mind becomes automatically aware and relaxed.  That is the path, like any other well trained skill, moving from deliberate practice until it becomes second nature, System 1.

Kahneman also posits an alternate measure of happiness, based more on moment to moment experience rather than recalled happiness.

"Odd as it may seem," Kahneman writes, "I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me."

Again in many ways the path is to reduce our attachment to the conceptual, remembering self, and to increasingly focus on the experiencing self, here and now.