Figure 2.

The cycle of meditation and mind-wandering during a focused attention meditation practice. The neurocognitive model of how meditation cultivates awareness of mind-wandering by directly engaging the neural substrates implicated in attention regulation, perception, and meta-awareness. This cycle highlights the role of awareness of spontaneous thought and the cyclical observation and detection of involuntary shifts of attention as being at the core of focused meditation practice. Here a meditator begins meditating by 1) the focusing of attention, to then have their 2) attention shift to content of spontaneous thought, until the meditator 3) becomes aware the mind has been off focus, and 3) reorientes attention back to the focus of meditation.