We started looking at six perfections last week. Why are we looking at these six perfections you might ask? The function of these six perfections is to make our lives smoother and with less friction. Today we will continue with this series and look at concentration. What is concentration? Before we look at that let’s look at what it is not. Concentration is not an act of will to force ourselves to focus on something or another. It is not like we say let’s focus on this pen. It is actually to eliminate that which does not belong. Here is a perfect example. I am sure you all have tried concentrated orange juice. All it is the removal of water from the juice. Meaning removing water from the juice.
So there are several components of concentration. The first one is the stability for mental capacity. We have talked about this before that the human mind is incapable of multitasking. What we call multitasking is rapidly switching from one task to another but it is not multitasking. Just like when we see a fan moving, the blades can seem like one because they are moving so fast. Similarly, multitasking is an illusion. Anything other than what you should be doing is a distraction such as texting and driving.
Part of concentration is not about narrowing our focus. Because when we narrow our focus we lose the context. So an aspect of concentration is actually to zoom out. When you talk about someone who is not with you and someone mentions a bad quality of the person who is not with them, the mind zooms in as to why that person is no good, and all of a sudden, that person becomes the worst person in the world in our mind. When we like or dislike something, we tend to justify it. When we try a new thing, a lot of times, we judge before we even try it. So it is not the object that is good or bad but our feeling towards it makes it good or bad. Once our feeling is set, we will follow the feeling as opposed to keeping the context.
A perfect example is when one falls in love. The person can do no wrong. They are not looking at context but just their feeling. Sometimes goes by and now they have a few arguments. All of a sudden the feeling towards the person changes and they can do no right! Everything they do annoys the person. Again, no context at all. No person is all good or bad. But it is the lack of context that makes things difficult.
Another element is to keep an eye on important vs urgent. We respond to emails all day long without regard to whether it is important or not. Urgent tends to distract your concentration from important. We have discussed this before as well that often we get hung up on urgent matters of the moment rather than keeping our focus on the larger goal.
Another aspect of concentration is stability for personal benefit.
Relaxation is very important for our personal benefit. Tension is distracting. When there is tension in any part of your body, it requires your attention. For example, if there is pain, our mind keeps going to that part of the body as opposed to being here and now. It is important to relax. Relaxation includes relaxation of the body and relaxation of the mind. When we are tense, we would trigger a flight, fight or freeze response within ourselves. We need to make decisions consciously rather than make reactive decisions. A reactive decision tends to be a mistake. Always perform a check to see if you are relaxed. We as a society don’t value relaxation but that is very important for our long-term health.
Interest is another quality that is needed for concentration. When we look at something, we don’t value differences between experiences. Sometimes we think we have already done something or experienced something, but there are always subtle differences. If we think it is the same, we are not paying attention and if we are not paying attention, we are not concentrating. So if we cultivate interest, it will increase our concentration. Because interest prevents us from distraction. We need to develop a beginner’s mind towards everything that we are doing right now. Because a beginner’s mind is always interested. That means you are mentally present as opposed to in the past or the future.
Confidence is another quality for the development of concentration. Confidence in the certainty of one’s path. If not, you will not be putting in your full effort and lose concentration. Once you chose to take a path, remove all self-doubt. Every action is beneficial; you either accomplish what you wanted to or learn from the experience. Don’t let outsiders influence your decision and break your confidence.
As you can see, concentration is one of the important perfections and if we understand and apply it correctly, it is of great benefit.
In today’s meditation, we will use a technique called black and white meditation. We have done this meditation in the past that helps us relieve stress from our life. At first, we will settle down in our hearts as always. Then we will imagine that all of our stress is gathered at our heart in the form of thick smoke. We will breathe in light and breathe out this thick smoke of stress.