Concentration and Investigation Are Like a Telescope

In the buddhist tradition, concentration and investigation are always taught side by side. Chugim trenpa writes about investigation where he talks about mindfulness this way. He says, mindfulness is like a microscope. It's neither an offensive nor a defensive weapon. The function of the microscope is to just clearly present what is there. And you could say, with well trained attention, what we're looking at are sense objects, sensory experience. We're looking at the objects that are arising in our own subjective experience.