Meditate to develop concentration
The ability to concentrate varies greatly from one individual to another, but not knowing how to concentrate or having difficulty doing so is not inevitable. You can indeed exercise it and develop it like any other capacity. This requires learning how to focus one’s attention and direct it as long as possible to one point of attention. A very useful and effective exercise for this is to meditate to develop concentration in all aspects of your life.
Meditate to develop concentration
The mind is often compared, in oriental philosophies, to a young animal who does not know how to stay in place, who can not stand calm or the right path. Yet it can be trained to better support these states. Meditation is here to help you do it.
By choosing a focus-based meditation, such as mindfulness meditation , you will train your mind to stay focused.
It is not a question of depriving it of this energy which allows you so many discoveries and pleasures, but to channel it to use it effectively rather than let it be consumed in scatters and jumps of an idea to the other.
Think of your mind as a stream that you would allow to run at will when you need it. By directing it, you take full advantage of the power of water. The malleability of the mind also allows you to find a stream of water when you want.
How, then, to meditate for this purpose?
The principle is very simple. You will have to learn to direct your mind, to focus it, to a unique idea. It is a question of examining it in all its aspects, of understanding its external relations, of yourself, of its surroundings, etc., without ever letting you derive from the first idea.
You will quickly discover that compelling the mind is not always the best solution, and passive resistance is sometimes much better.
Thus, when unrelated or distant ideas come to the surface of your consciousness, you will rather pass them by rather than trying to erase them.
So disciplining your mind will require you to face kicks, because you will not always be inclined to concentrate, then you will experience periods of deep meditation, with an ever deeper and deeper awareness of what is going on. that you choose to observe.
Leave no respite in your mind during the entire meditation session. Return relentlessly to your first object as soon as you realize that you have moved away from it. This will require you to observe thinking, which requires some training. Thus educated, your mind will be able to be more focused in all areas where you need it.
It is often reluctant to see the mind as a muscle, yet with all the limitations of such a comparison, there are many similarities.
You will need to train your concentration skills with increasingly difficult exercises as you progress, but with time to move forward. In seeking to go too fast, you will get only a weariness and a refusal of all your being to practice, as a muscle would be injured under too much effort.
You will need rest between sessions, this is the price of progression. Even if we think that only hard and relentless work can produce results, we must not yield to the temptation to do more and more.
Meditating to develop concentration is also a school of patience, know to be demanding with yourself while leaving time to your mind. He is still like a child you want to grow. He needs time to assimilate, to change.