DEALING WITH DISTRACTIONS - PT 1, CONCENTRATION
Nice deep breathe in, down and out. Nice deep breathe in, down and out. Concentrate on the nostrils and feel the air moving through your body. Experience each part of the breathe, beginning, middle and end. Then another. Then another. With eyes closed force the eyes to look at the tip of your nose. Concentrate on that small spot on the tip of your nose as you just breathe, naturally, in and out. I think I need to get gas for the car today. "WTF was that"? "Where did that come from"? "Why am I thinking about gas when I'm meditating"? That folks is your designated distraction. A thought pops into your head from nowhere and pulls you away. We stop, shake the thought out of our mind and try again.
Nice deep breathe in, down and out. Nice deep breathe in, down and out. Concentrate on the nostrils and feel the air moving through your body. Experience each part of the breathe, beginning, middle and end. Then another. Then another. With eyes closed force the eyes to look at the tip of your nose. Concentrate on that small spot on the tip of your nose as you just breathe, naturally, in and out. "Was that an airplane that I just heard"? "That sounded kind of close". "Wonder where it is going"?" I wish I was on a plane to Aruba". "I need a vacation". "WTF, here we go again". "First it was gas, now it's an airplane". "I must be crazy". "I'll never get this meditation right". " I can't stay focused for more than a few seconds". Relax. You are not crazy. You have Monkey Brain. We all do. When you take away the minds ability to do what it does, process information, it reaches into the subconscious and does it itself.
Remember earlier when we spoke of subconscious/conscious? Since the goal of meditation is to live in the exact moment we need to train the mind to go along for the ride, to process conscious information. But with a still mind, free of stimuli the mind doesn't know what to do and revolts. If it is not given information to process it will go get its own or jump on the first available, the barking dog or the airplane. So again, you are not crazy, just human. Everyone's mind operates this way we just never knew it until we start meditating.
When we meditate two thing are happening simultaneously, concentration and awareness. Let's review concentration. We force ourselves to focus (concentrate) on an object. We pick this object and direct our concentration to it. We don't move from it, we don't flinch, we stay focused. All our energy is directed to this object. We lock on and hold on. But in reality we cannot out think the mind so we become distracted. Something occurs to let the mind pull us away. We lose concentration and we need to get it back. We need help. This is where awareness comes into play.
Next post - DEALING WITH DISTRACTIONS - PT 2, AWARENESS
