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Focused Attention and Meditation

Control of consciousness is a complex skill, and, like other complex forms of expertise it must be earned by each individual, generation after generation. . . . It is not enough to know how to do it; you must DO it, consistently, in the same way athletes and musicians must keep practicing what they know in theory.

 — Csikszentmihalyi

We usually do not notice how chaotic our minds are because the autonomous sequence of internal states and external events channel attention so well that thoughts, emotional reactions, and overt behaviors seem to unfold in an orderly manner. But when not reacting to external demands, and the mind is given a chance to rest, its basic disorder reveals itself. With nothing to do, it tends to drift aimlessly until it is eventually captured by the most salient stimuli.

Thoughts related to the self are particularly salient  —  threats from the future, poignant or cringe-worthy memories from the past. While self-focused ruminations are quite compelling, they are painful and useless. In fact, to escape self-awareness, people distract themselves with TV, or numb their minds with intoxicants, food, pornography, etc. Happily, you can grow out of this mentality of childhood.

The paths ahead give you the opportunity to explore more advanced strategies for using your cognitive resources. The first involves developing the master skill of selective attention  —  that is, the capability of purposely aiming your attention to an intended stimulus, despite the influence of a highly salient, but distracting stimuli.

Enhancing mindful control of your attention

The ability to purposely focus your attention on a particular stimulus gives you the power to react to the things that happen in ways that promote your interests and principles.  Exercising your faculty of mindfully aiming your attention enhances your ability to control your emotional reactions to the things that happen.

Working with the Focused Attention exercises on this and the next page is the practice that develops the Master Skill: attending to stimuli that elicit emotional and motivational states that are in accord with your interests and principles despite the pull of more salient stimuli that would elicit counter-productive emotional [e.g., anger] or motivational states [e.g., desire for addictive activity].

Focused Attention Meditation typically involves selecting a target for your attention and focusing on it. Paying attention to one thing turns out to be more difficult than you might think, because the mind is easily distracted by any salient thought or image that may come along. Once the distraction has captured your attention your internal voice will have an opportunity to ruminate about your lapse of attention and interrupt the intended trance formation. Instead of following this counterproductive default, your task is to accept that your mind wandered off and redirect it back to the intended target [without frustration, self-criticism, or other unwanted trance formational tangents].

As you practice purposely aiming your attention to a particular target  —  e.g., your breathing —  you will be developing the meta-cognitive skills that will enable you to willfully influence your emotional and motivational states. The very task of maintaining your attention on a target requires that you monitor the contents of your consciousness to detect distractions so you can redirect your attention back to the intended target. This meta-cognitive process opens the door to a new perspective on consciousness and will.

The "puppy training" metaphor is used to remind you of the importance of repeated but gentle redirection. Progress is most rapid when the training process is experienced as rewarding rather than punishing. Treating a puppy, or yourself, harshly during training decreases the trainee's desire to participate. Indeed, the most important task of the puppy trainer is to encourage the puppy to participate in the training process; an attitude of unconditional positive regard for the trainee is strongly associated with good outcome.

Focused Attention Exercises

The practice of focusing your attention on a particular target — e.g., the sensation of breathing — can produce interesting subjective experiences, including altered states of consciousness. The motivation to achieve these experiences motivates many to practice meditation. However, for our current purposes, the transcendental experiences are secondary. We seek the lower hanging fruit that can be harvested by acquiring the competence to:

  1. Calm the creature you inhabit. As an adult your are responsible to master your emotional reactions to the things that happen so you do not self-sabotage.

  2. Purposely influence the contents of your consciousness — that is, attend to the most meaningful rather than to the most salient aspect of your environment [the Master Skill ].

Focused Attention meditation represents a family of mental practices that are explicitly designed to train such attentional skills. As you practice the exercises described on this page, you will be developing the three skills required to control your attention:

  1. Monitoring your attention - i.e., remaining vigilant for distractions without destabilizing the intended focus.
  2. Disengaging from a distracting object without further involvement.
  3. Redirecting attention promptly back to the intended target.

As you practice the exercises described below, notice changes in your level of stress and the clarity of your thought processes.

Counting Your Breaths Meditation

Tonight, when you go to bed, turn off the lights, and close your eyes, instead of going to sleep you can exercise your faculty of directing your attention.  Visualize or sub-vocalize the number “1” during your first exhale, the number “2” during your second exhale, and so on. You will find that your attention tends to wander to more salient thoughts, images, or sensations. The exercise is to gently escort your attention back to the intended target. Sound easy?  You probably won’t make it to "4"—in fact, your mind may drift so far away that you forget what number you are up to (if you do, just begin again with "1").  Now that you have been tipped off, perhaps you’ll do better than 4.  Have respect for this task; it is effortful, which is why it requires discipline.  You inhabit a creature whose attention is bound to be captured by the most salient stimulus at any given moment.  When this happens you will exercise your will to re-direct your attention back to the intended target.  Each repetition of returning your attention to the target is analogous to lifting a dumbbell.  The goal is to exercise your ability to purposely aim your attention, so that when you encounter a highly salient stimulus that would elicit a pathogenic trance, you will have practiced the capability to override its influence and direct your attention to a stimulus that elicits a more resourceful trance.



Meditating on a Mantra

A mantra is repeated over and over until you become habituated to it and no longer attend to it, which has the effect of clearing the mind of mundane thought, and thereby freeing it for transcendent experience.  Some examples of a mantra: Whisper the word, “one,” each time you exhale; whisper the phrase, “calm and tranquil” on each exhale; on alternating exhales whisper the sound, “mmmm” (a sound of coherence like, “Om”) or the sound, “sssss” (the sound of chaos like white noise). As you continue repeating the mantra, you may notice some interesting transformations taking place.  For example, as the mind quiets down, mental images become more vivid, and you may be able to hold them in mind for longer periods.

The next page describes the Master Skill: The willfull influence of your subjective experience by developing mindful control of your attention.

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