The other week I proposed an experiment where the subject would use meditation to try and rapidly alter their personality. This week I want to talk about another interesting and potentially beneficial activity to try out. This one, in my opinion, is probably virtually impossible to achieve, unless you’re a zen master, but could greatly increase your ability to focus, control your emotions, stay motivated, become more aware, etc.
The activity is very simple, all you’re doing is utilizing traditional zen thinking to calm and focus your mind. You should approach everything you do that day with 100% focus. For instance, when washing the dishes, focus entirely on the visual and tactile experience of the soap and water. What you’ll find is an immediate difficulty in trying to quell random thoughts from entering your mind. This is what we’re fighting, the constant barrage of extraneous thoughts your brain is transmitting to your conscious mind.
Aside: this is one area I’ve often thought about. First, your brain is probably transmitting thoughts that your conscious mind is becoming aware of, depending on how strong the neural connection is. Strong neural connections stimulated via the external environment through your senses will vary in strength recalling certain previous experiences, so it seems logical to assume that your brain is more a receiver of signals than something that generates them. This is why questioning your free will is important. Of course it seems like we can manipulate these thoughts and alter our personality and perception of reality. But I often wonder why it’s so important to focus on clearing your thoughts and focusing your mind in the zen tradition. Is it because a constantly active mind is somehow inherently bad? Or is it because much of our environment is littered with negative energy you’re unknowingly absorbing? Or is it simply to become stronger by exercising your power of will? Or perhaps it’s because slowing down and focusing unlocks the realizations I mention below.
So why bother interspersing this activity into your daily life? Because it results in some very powerful rewards. The first is the most obvious: a heightened level of focus. This has some close attachments as well, like an increased attention span and willpower. And with these changes, you realize the importance of one-dimensional focus and how much more efficient you are when employing it. It’s important to note here that it is myth that humans can multitask. Instead it seems more likely that we simply shift quickly between what we’re focused on. And even if we do have multitasking abilities they are very primitive and only result in reduced quality to whatever multiple things we are focused on. We cannot focus on two independent tasks and achieve the same level of quality had we focused on them individually. And if you analyze highly successful and motivated people, they often, if not always, focus on singular goals and tasks and work to complete them, rather than managing many different things. I’ve personally found this to be very beneficial and something I wished I had learned earlier on.
There are deeper realizations that result from this sort of practice as well. One is an increased sensitivity and awareness to your emotion and surroundings. This is something you may take for granted at first but becomes incredibly apparent later on. Although I will admit that it can also be really depressing at times because you’ll notice your absorption of negative energy more clearly. I think before the realization you simply absorb it without notice and may even block it out more, but ultimately you’re still gaining negative energy. This realization can help you notice it, get away from whatever is causing it, and meditate back into a happier state. This also helps explain why people react negatively after a long day with things like outbursts, crying, etc. It’s because a lot of times you’re absorbing a high amount of negative energy (tension, stress, etc.) during the day you’re not even aware of it and eventually you crack under the pressure. If we never slept we’d see many more people breaking down all the time and exploding with emotion. Sleep breaks the cycle and resets our energy, but with this awareness you can manually manage it and ensure that you feel happy and content whenever you want to be.
The next realization is this idea that you have much less control over your mind than you think you do. We all go about our lives thinking we have free will and are in control of our actions, but through this sort of practice and meditation, you begin to realize that your conscious mind is often times at the mercy of your brain. That your inability to control the thoughts flooding into your conscious mind, even though you desperately want to stop them, reflects just how little of control you actually have. And eventually this leads to this idea that we have degrees of willpower and that you must earn control by exercising it. The crazy thing is that it becomes increasingly apparent in people around you. You’ll begin to notice all these weird little things that humans do that you never really noticed before, and you’ll realize that many of them are like automated behaviors that their brains are doing outside of their control. It’s really weird and gives you the impression that you’re living among half-aware robots.
Self-improvement and enlightenment are long journeys and this is just one tiny glimpse of the puzzle. Zen thinking, calming your mind, clearing your thoughts, meditation, etc. are all designed at awakening your mind. Don’t expect to try these practices with the hope that days, weeks, or even months later you’ll understand it. I’ve been doing these sort of things for 4-5 years and I’m just now beginning to really notice changes. Be patient, be diligent, and the rewards of heightened states will come to you.
