Zen Buddhism

[Angrboda]

An interesting comparison can be made to automatic driving. In automatic driving, we're not really aware of the individual decisions we make on the road. We can drive for miles, taking various familiar exits, without once ever realizing that one is making decisions. That's a form of extreme mindfulness in which the task of driving fades from consciousness almost completely. However what it doesn't do is teach us how to willfully enter states of such focused attention. Our focusing and careful attention is forced upon the mind by the stimulus, not chosen by the will.