“Concentration is a cornerstone of mindfulness practice. Your mindfulness will only be as robust as the capacity of your mind to be calm and stable.” ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn from Wherever You Go, There You Are Concentration. As Kabat-Zinn advises us, our mindfulness will only be as strong as our ability to calm our mind and point it in the direction we choose. He continues: “You can think of concentration as the capacity of the mind to sustain an unwavering attention on one object of observation. It is cultivated by attending to one thing, such as the breath, and just limiting one’s focus to that. In Sanskrit, concentration is called samadhi, or “onepointedness.” Samadhi is developed and deepened by continually bringing the attention back to the breath every time it wanders. When practicing strictly concentrative forms of meditation, we purposefully refrain from any efforts to inquire into areas such as where the mind went when it wandered off, or that the quality of the breath fluctuates. Our energy is directed solely toward experiencing this breath coming in, this breath going out, or some other single object of attention. With extended practice, the mind tends to become better and better at staying on the breath, or noticing even the earliest impulse to become distracted by something else, and either resisting its pull in the first place and staying on the breath, or quickly returning to it.” Love the idea of developing our samadhi—the onepointedness muscle that allows us to step out of the current of our habitual and reactive thoughts/feelings and to choose the most empowered responses. Here’s how I like to think about it: Imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger’s physique. All ripped up and sculpted from the countless hours he’s spent in the gym. Now imagine His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Although it’s not quite as easy to see inside his mind, it’s at least as sculpted as Schwarzenegger’s body. He’s spent as many hours training his mind as Schwarzenegger has spent on his body. “Meditation workout” after workout, the Dalai Lama’s done repetition after repetition—training his mind to come back to his breath, to come back to love, to come to back patience and compassion. How’s your mind looking? All Schwarzenegger-ed out or a little soft and flabby?! :)
Brian Johnson
