When someone becomes aware of the arising and passing away of each minuscule event at the six sense doors (eyes, ears, nose, palate/tongue, body/skin, and mind/thought) one is at that time practicing moment-to-moment awareness meditation. As one becomes aware of each successive moment, she is bound to become more conscious of her intentions, of each movement of her body, of what she should or should not be doing (saying or thinking). She will be more attuned to sounds, smells, tastes, and sights than ever before. These are some of the major advantages one might realize early on from this practice.
On the down side, this sharp, pristine awareness of each thing that occurs can produce a surprising insensitivity to subtleties of thought and feeling. Since one's attention is not allowed to linger on anything even for a moment, subtle feelings and moods, especially those that persist at a low level, do not emerge into the field of awareness. A meditator may be quite aware of a sudden surge of anger, but be completely oblivious to a barely perceptible gnawing annoyance at something. In the area of thought, a meditator may observe that a thought arose and passed away, but be insensitive as to what the thought actually was and what feeling, if any, it may have contained.
In Vipassana, we are instructed to go from the gross to the subtle. A too heavy use of moment-to-moment awareness can keep the meditator at the level of gross impressions and feelings, not allowing her to get to the subtler aspects, where many deep understandings can occur.
In Vipassana, we are instructed to go from the gross to the subtle. A too heavy use of moment-to-moment awareness can keep the meditator at the level of gross impressions and feelings, not allowing her to get to the subtler aspects, where many deep understandings can occur.
I have listened to the experiences of several meditators who over the years have diligently practiced moment-to-moment awareness techniques. The most common technique, being that of noting, uses prescribed words, such as "thinking, thinking" to catch a consciousness event exactly while it occurs. Many people, including myself, who have used this technique to catch the immediate arising of sense and mental impressions have felt frustrated by our inability to do so. For us, the awareness of things has not been "moment-to-moment", but, instead, immediately after the fact. Nonetheless, we were aware; we just weren't fast enough.
In contrast to moment-to-moment awareness is a form of awareness that involves recollecting, or "calling back to mind" immediately prior experience. This form of awareness allows the mind to be and do as it pleases, giving it a long leash for its closely watched wanderings. One learns to tolerate its meanderings, while at the same time never losing the thin, tenuous sense of being present, alert, and aware. Here the meditator's effort is put into observing what she experiences, be it exalted states of mind or miserable griefs and obsessions, and, upon her awareness returning to the still presence of the body, calling back to mind the prominent features of the periods of mind wandering. In this way, awareness is initially developed at the level in which it is truly present: weak and after the fact. In time, the meditator finds that there are periods where she is not so much recollecting but rather being mindful of thoughts, feelings, sensations, and sense impressions while they are occurring. Thus, gradually, moment to moment awareness arises, sometimes remaining for whole sittings or even longer before it too vanishes, leaving the meditator once again aware of things at some undetermined time after the fact.
It is significant that the Pali word "sati" can be broadly translated in two different ways. One is as "wakefulness of mind. or mindfulness," while the other is "calling back to mind, recollection, memory" (especially that of sacred teachings), which is its original meaning. In the Pali Suttas of the Buddha and his disciples, you will find both of these meanings in use, which can make one wonder why only one definition (mindfulness) is used by mainstream Vipassana meditation. The answer to this question lies in the tradition of Theravada Buddhist teachers interpreting the early Suttas using concepts and definitions of the later scholastic periods of Buddhism, most particularly the concept of consciousness-moments.
The word "sati" has been attached to that concept, and has thus come to mean "the immediate direct awareness of each moment of consciousness as it arises and passes away." What this means to those who practice moment-to-moment mindfulness meditation is that they define awareness solely as being in the now and disregard knowledge about experience which is not in the now, but in the mind as a recollection.
No one can truthfully come to a conclusion about the practice of moment-to-moment mindfulness meditation, or awareness meditation that uses recollection, unless one has tried both of them. A meditation method needs to become mastered as a practice before its value can be appreciated or denied. Adopting it as a philosophy because it sounds good or because someone who is an authority says it is the best or only way to meditate is inadequate. The discerning meditator will diligently try out the approach and see where it leads.