Stay Focused
- September 9th, 2010
- 1 Comment »
What would Buddha do to stay focused?
“Like a fish on land, flopping, gasping, the mind contorts to flee the tempter’s power. To train this jerky, willful mind is better; the trained and ordered mind at last can rest.” (Dhammapada 34-35)
Below is an extract taken from: “What would Buddha do at work?” by Franz Metcalf & BJ Gallagher Hateley
Buddha wasn’t a licensed psychiatrist or psychologist, but he understood human nature. We might chuckle at his imagery in describing the human mind like a fish on dry land, slippery, hard to get a hold of, flipping this way and that with no apparent pattern or direction. We also might find this a little scary, for the future of the fish is not good. Some people call this ‘monkey mind’, always jumping around, chattering. Some people call it attention deficit disorder. Whatever we call it, we all have it, to a greater or lesser degree.
So, if we all have short attention spans and are easily distracted, what can we do to focus in order to see projects through to completion?
Buddha advises us to train our minds, specifically through meditation and other forms of spiritual discipline. A trained mind is good because it lets us to focus on the important things. A trained mind brings ease because it is uncluttered. We no longer feel the anxiety of the monkey mind, chattering endlessly, or the fish mind, gulping for the lost sea.
Being focused, or having concentration is an important discipline in personal growth and development. Ernest Holmes said that your power goes where your consciousness flows. When you’re centered and concentrating on what you’re doing, not only do you derive more pleasure from your actions, but also all of your power, both inner and outer, is being used to empower those actions. Through concentration you become powerful. Force your mind to concentrate and you’ve won a battle over struggle.
How many of us face this daily occurrences of ‘drifting into wonderland’, losing our concentration at work, in school, and even during play?
I am certain many of us do, and often without having a clue how frequently we have allowed the mind take us away from the present moment. The mind has to be trained to be still and be focused, and one of the ways to do that is through practices like meditation. The practice trains the mind, and a trained mind is a good thing. There are other ways of training the mind – the important thing is to pick something we like, and training in a way we like, we will simply do more.
Set aside some time, either in the morning or any other time that you will get some quiet moments on your own and train your mind to be still. Sometimes I will go for morning runs and listen to my breath and heartbeat as I take every step, and as I settled into the flow…my mind learns to be in the here and now.
Well, from my own personal experience – trying, struggling or forcing anything (especially the mind) to be still, only creates more of the same. I found that by ALLOWING it, smiling at it’s antics, not paying any attention to it and especially not believing what it says, in other words STOP FEEDING IT YOUR ATTENTION – it will gradually take a back seat! Really!! Remember, what we resist – persists! I call it the ME-mind – and what you are wanting to cultivate (not by force or struggle) is the Free-mind, right? Think about it!!