Tips, Tricks, and Techniques--Concentrate

One purpose of starting this blog was to pass on knowledge that might prove useful. This is definitely one of the items that I’ve found useful, and so might you.

In this case, it’s improved concentration. Concentration, like memory, and physical conditioning, improves with use. In meditation, the initial task is improving concentration to the point that the mind becomes a tool, not the unruly ruler of oneself. One learns that one is not the mind, where the average person probably conceives himself as a small ball of awareness a few centimeters behind his eyes.

This initial “monkey mind” as it is called in Buddhist and Hindu traditions can be tamed. Meditation has two manners of doing so. One is to merely observe the thoughts as they pop into the mind, watch them as they go their way, then fade. To help not get caught up, one can label each thought as to its type as it appears. This method allows one to not get caught up in one’s own thoughts, for thoughts produce reactions in the body, sensory and emotional. Think of a lemon, for example. A number of writers, including Mark Twain, have commented on things they’ve suffered, most of which never happened. This technique gives one isolation from most things that go bump in the night.

A second technique is simply to concentrate on something, and the most common one is the breath itself. One can attend or pay attention to the breath as it goes and comes, either in general or as it transits through the nasal passages. For some reason, females supposedly have trouble with that (I haven’t checked that our personally, at least, in this lifetime), so can attend breathings effect on the stomach or naval area—thus the joke of contemplating one’s naval. Breathing should be through the stomach, so to speak, as done by a baby. Breathing only through the chest is shallow, as in panic mode, while through the stomach is relaxing. Try and both ways and observe the emotional effect.

When one notes one’s concentration has strayed, bring it back gently as one would a small child who has merely walked off the path. This will be common, and it is important to do so gently.

Another method of improving concentration, not involving meditation, is one gained from Wayne Dyer. Picture a shot clock, and count it down from 24 to 0---without thinking of anything else—nothing! Difficult to do, and, be forewarned, the most common intruding thought is “How am I doing?” Should a thought intrude, restart the clock at 24 and begin again. It is not easy, and even Dyer said it took him days before being able to accomplish it the first time.

Often, in life, we are required to wait as in, for example, the waiting room of an office. These provide an arena for practice that allows one to benefit from the time. The benefits of mind mastery cannot, I think, be easily exaggerated, and concentration is a definite first and giant step.