From automatic action to mindful control

This is a familiar notion in terms of acquiring any new skill. As an example, I'll take learning to drive a car.

You start from the position of unconscious incompetence. You don't even know what it is that you don't know. As it begins to dawn on you just how much you need to understand – movements you must coordinate, mental checklists to master, traffic signs, and the rules of the road you must remember – you move to conscious incompetence. 

Now you are beginning to be aware of how much there is to learn, you start putting the theory into practice. In time, you move towards conscious competence. You're aware of depressing the clutch each time before shifting gear; you're aware of all the actions needed to negotiate a roundabout – brakes, shift down, mirror, indicate; looking left and right. 

Your first driving lessons are stressful. The brain is fatigued; fear overcomes you as you realise that you're in control of a tonne or more of steel, glass and rubber, moving with deadly kinetic potential at thirty metres per second. 

But with time, with practice, the process of driving a car becomes easier and easier. Now you have acquired unconscious competence. You no longer have to think about what you're doing – you just do it. Everything falls into place. You take your test, and you pass it. Sometimes it takes several attempts; no matter – you have become a driver. And you're not unique in this. 

Billions of other human beings have acquired this skill too. It has become automatic. We've all experienced that moment when, lost in your own train of thoughts, you suddenly realise you have covered many miles without having any conscious awareness of the actual road, landmarks passed, especially if it's a well-known route. 

So – my point is this. Is unconscious competence enough? 

It's in this state of mind that most road accidents occur. Bear this in mind – 3,700 people died in road accidents around the world yesterday. Half of them will have been pedestrians or cyclists. Nearly all accidents, fatal or those resulting in injury, will have happened with the participants in a state of unawareness.

Setting off for a walk, or a drive, or a motorbike ride, or a train journey, I utter a small prayer for my safe return, coupled to an expression of conscious gratitude for having got through another day, for my health, for my luck. 

And here's the thing. Is the very act of being aware of the need to consciously look out for myself physical mindfulness – sharpening my observation, my forethought and anticipation, taking care – or is there a metaphysical element involved as well? A guardian angel looking out for me? The same spiritual entity that provides me with intuition, that aligns my flow with that of the Cosmos?

Quidquid agis, prudenter agas, et respice finem. 

Meditation means consciously disassociating the mind from matter. Mindfulness is engaging with the physical realm in a state of high awareness. 

This time last year:
Keep on keeping on

This time two years ago:
Time and Consciousness

This time three years ago:
Altered states - higher planes

This time eight years ago:
Warsaw-Radom line modernisation - Czachówek

This time 14 years ago:
Climbing Mogielica