A Million Thoughts

by Om Swami

  The more you practice this concentration, the more creative you get. An artist’s skills continue to improve as she continues to paint. Painting is merely an example. You could be absorbed in composing music, writing a song or a book and so forth. One of the unique rewards of this concentration is the sense of independence that you attain. The more absorbed you are, the less you need the world around you. It brings a certain calmness in you.

  If you build one-pointed concentration, the quality of your absorptive concentration improves automatically and significantly. Meditation can unlock your creativity in unimaginable ways.

  Analytical Concentration

  You can also think of it as an investigative or contemplative concentration. Your brain is constantly calculating and analysing in this form of concentration.

  Think of a chess player. A chess player can look at the chess board unblinking for very long periods. He is concentrating but it’s not one-pointed concentration. He is constantly evaluating their line of attack, variations, moves and the opponent’s responses.

  He is so absorbed in that analytical investigation that the world around him ceases to exist. Neither hunger, thirst nor nature’s call – nothing disturbs him when they are calculating. If you play chess or if you ever had the opportunity to observe a chess player closely, you will know what I mean.

  The ability to carry out penetrating analysis on any given line of thought results from analytical concentration. A computer programmer engrossed in fixing a bug or creating a new piece of software, or a mathematician working on a theorem – they are masters of analytical concentration. Some of the all-time greatest scientists and inventors were extremely skilled in this type of concentration.

  Like the other forms of concentration, the more you practice it, the better you get at it. It continues to sharpen. Over time, you are able to carry out even more detailed analysis quicker. That is not just because of experience in your field but also because your mind can cut through the noise and stay focussed in the analysis. The speed and depth at which a trained human mind can analyse is simply mind-boggling – a point that was proved by Gary Kasparov’s win against IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue in 1995. On the one hand was Deep Blue, more than six feet high and three feet wide, a powerful machine capable of evaluating 200 million positions per second. On the other hand was a human being with brain the size of a lettuce and yet having superior analytical concentration and intelligence.

  Elementary Concentration

  This is not even real concentration, it is more like pseudo concentration but it’s what most of us utilize for the most part of our lives, especially in this day and age. With this form of concentration, the mind does not become sharper, quieter or even happier. Above all, our mind gains nothing new when practicing elementary concentration. It only helps in engaging the mind so that we get a break from the thinking machine our mind is. In that sense, it can be relaxing or entertaining at the most.

  Consider the example of watching TV, a two-year-old can rejoice in watching TV as much as a forty-year-old. On the surface it may seem that watching television is a harmless activity but it is not so for your mind. Your brain has to constantly process visual data coming from millions of pixels and frames that are changing at an incredible speed, it has to process auditory signals coming from the television. In addition, it has to filter out all the other noises and visual stimulation that may be in the room where you are watching the television. It is one of the reasons why even really boring programs can be interesting – your mind is engaged. Such fast processing leaves no time for any creativity, analysis or contemplation. By the time the program finishes, you may have more information than you did before but you will not end up more intelligent. It will dull you instead.

  Even while playing most video games, where it might seem that the player is concentrating hard, the concentration is no more than elementary concentration. The player is expected to react quickly, the brain has to process information and act more instinctually than creatively. It is for this reason that playing video games or watching TV does little to enhance your creativity. Your brain gets tired of the constant processing and it results in tiredness of the eyes. You could sit in the mountains, in a natural setting and look around all day without feeling the slightest mental fatigue or physical tiredness. But you do the same in front of a TV and you will be ready to sleep after a couple of hours.

  The next time your 14-year-old tells you to get away because he’s concentrating on completing the mission of his videogame, he’s not lying, he is concentrating. However, feel free to remind him that this concentration would not help him in getting better grades. (No style of meditation is available to make a teenager listen to you though. You are at God’s mercy or their mood, both of which are beyond analysis and predictability.)

  Another example of elementary concentration is driving. Your brain is constantly processing information. Your mind is aware of the dangerous consequences in case of any lapse in the concentration, therefore it keeps itself mostly engaged. If you drive through the rush hour traffic, even though you are going much slower, it is more tiring because your brain has processed information for longer duration.

  Passive Concentration

  Everyone’s mind is always maintaining this form of concentration – the passive concentration. Evolution over the past tens of thousands of years has taught our brains to be on the watch. You are climbing stairs and it knows you have to lift your foot by so many inches. It is constantly processing information, it is watching out for threats, hurdles and challenges. It is the reason why even if you don’t do anything for a whole day, you may still feel tired and still require sleep in the night. Concentration is mind at work.

  There are other examples where passive concentration is explicitly at work. Think of someone fishing. He may be talking, reading, lying down while fishing, but a part of his mind is concentrated on the fishing rod. The moment there’s even a slight movement, the passivity of the concentration takes an active stage and the reflexes spring into action.

  In all forms of concentration, a degree of alertness and focus is required because that’s what concentration is about – forging ahead with focus and alertness.

  One pointed concentration for meditation requires both alertness and focus in equal degrees. Lose alertness and you will experience laziness. Lose focus and you experience restlessness.

  The two greatest demons in meditation – restlessness and laziness. The former robs you off your patience and the other costs you your lucidity.

  Thankfully though, the sages in India have been practicing meditation for thousands of years. If scriptures are to be believed, it’s more than 20,000 years and if you were to solely rely on archaeological evidence, it would be around 8,500 years. Either ways, it’s been around long enough to have specific practices and methods that help you detect and correct flaws in your meditation.

  The next critical element of meditation which is not only the fundamental building block of meditation but also helps you to improve the quality of your concentration is… mindfulness.

  Mindfulness

  Once Buddha and Ananda were walking by the riverside. Ananda had posed a question a few minutes ago and Buddha was deeply engrossed in answering that. In the course of that stroll, a fly came and sat on Buddha’s forehead. As anyone would do, he raised his hand to shoo away the fly. All this while, he did not stop talking or walking. He continued to deliver the sermon and Ananda listened raptly as ever.

  A few steps later, Buddha stopped and slowly repeated the gesture as if there sat another fly on his forehead when in fact, there was none. This intrigued Ananda.

  “O Sage, please enlighten me,” he requested. “Why did you wave your hand when there was nothing on your forehead.”

  “Listen carefully, O Ananda,” Buddha spoke with his usual grace. “The first time the fly had come and sat on my face, I shooed it away. But there was no
mindfulness in that action. It seemed like a reflex action when it wasn’t so at all. From the moment, the fly came to when I shooed it, many thoughts had emerged and disappeared in my mind. I had realized there was a fly, my mind thought to drive it away, it instructed my hand to perform the needful action, my hand did so, my eyes registered the fly flying away, my mind accepted it, and my hand returned to its original position. It was a visceral response. I only became aware of it afterwards. Such conduct does not suit a meditator. A good meditator performs every action with utmost mindfulness.

  Therefore, I stopped and repeated the action with mindfulness so I may avoid making the same mistake again. A good monk ought to be aware at all times.”

  Every day, we perform hundreds of actions that are neither handled by our intelligence nor intellect. Instead, they are done instinctually. From the perspective of meditation, those reflex actions arising out of our habits and tendencies only show a lack of mindfulness. No doubt, they play an important role when it comes to our survival but most of the time our actions are not as much about survival. They are merely our mindless response. A man was speeding on a windy road in the mountains.

  While turning a tight corner another car came from the opposite direction cutting it a little too close. There was a young woman driver in that car.

  “Pig!” she yelled.

  “You pig!” the man screamed. Enraged and worked up he put his foot on the gas and just when he turned around the corner, there was a sturdy pig waiting for him in the middle. To avoid hitting the hog, he turned bit more to the left and the next moment he was crashing four hundred feet down a gorge.

  Our mindless behaviour is the primary cause behind most of our suffering. We end up thinking, saying and doing things that we didn’t want to. Subsequently, we feel guilty. Sometimes we want to apologize but our ego starts to justify our mindless actions. Before we know it we have caused some serious damage to our relationships.

  At the heart of any good meditation, regardless of the nature of your meditation, is the art of mindfulness. It is important to point out that mindfulness is not merely ‘awareness’ as commonly understood (or misunderstood). In the context of meditation, mindfulness has a very specific purpose and is of two types, namely, active mindfulness and contemplative mindfulness.

  Contemplative or discriminative mindfulness is used to make mindful choices (rather than reacting or going with the first feeling that comes to mind) in ordinary situations in life. This is what most people mean when they talk about being mindful. Contemplative mindfulness is also the basis of analytical enquiry (another term for contemplative meditation).

  Active mindfulness, on the other hand, aids a meditator’s concentration to remain lucid, sharp and strong. Its function is to ensure that the mind of a meditator is focused on the object of meditation without getting distracted. Active mindfulness checks the emergence and flow of discursive thoughts. From here on, unless otherwise specified, whenever I use the term mindfulness, please know that I mean active mindfulness.

  Asanga’s text Abhidharmasamucchaya explains, “What is mindfulness? It is a retentive power that does not forget something already familiarized. Precisely, its function is to prevent the mind from being overcome by distraction.” The text of Mahamudra by Dakpo Tashi Namgyal goes on to elucidate mindfulness in meditation as “a special kind of mindfulness, and an indispensable means for realizing tranquillity.”

  The two other types of mindfulness described before represent discriminating mindfulness, which has a role in differentiating or analyzing things but which must be abandoned in meditational equipoise.

  When you nurture and master active mindfulness in meditation, contemplative mindfulness emerges automatically in your daily

  life. It is a natural outcome of good meditation. Mindfulness in meditation is not a state of passive receptivity that you are simply observing your thoughts or that you are mindful of what is happening around you, or that even you are mindful of your thoughts in a non-judgemental way.

  It is not bare attention.

  On the contrary, mindfulness must be looked upon as the ever awake watch guard standing at the door of your mind. As soon as a discursive thought or a disturbing emotion emerges on the canvas of your mental imagery, mindfulness is the guard that alerts your mind. Along with alertness, it closes the door to your fortress so you may continue to concentrate uninterrupted.

  It is stated most beautifully in Thannassiro Bhikku’s translation of Aṅguttara Nikāya, 7.63:

  “Just as a royal frontier fortress has a gatekeeper – wise, experienced, intelligent – to keep out those he doesn’t know and to let in those he does, for the protection of those within, and to ward off those without; in the same way, a disciple of the noble ones is mindful, endowed with excellent proficiency in mindfulness, remembering and recollecting what was done and said a long time ago. With mindfulness as his gatekeeper, the disciple of the noble ones abandons what is unskilful, develops what is skilful, abandons what is blameworthy, develops what is blameless, and looks after himself with purity.”

  It is not possible to meditate correctly in the absence of good concentration. Even in the eight-limbed yoga of Patanjali, he’s put concentration before meditation. This is because concentration is the basis of good meditation. Good concentration, however, is impossible to develop without mindfulness.

  Negative thoughts and emotions of hate, greed, jealousy, anger and so on will disrupt your meditation. Stimulating thoughts of lust, sex and sensuality can interfere with your tranquillity. Even positive thoughts of joy, success and celebration can cause restlessness. Passive thoughts of guilt, resentment, remorse and sadness can destroy your concentration. However remember, all these are thoughts ultimately, and the singular way to overcome them, so you may carry on with your meditation, is to deploy the guard of mindfulness at the main door of your mind.

  Mindfulness, as a good guard, knowing that the emperor has forbidden any and every one from entering the palace, will not communicate with any visitor (thought). Its job is not to discriminate and find out who is fit to go in. The guard of mindfulness is deployed to keep the door shut for all outsiders.

  In order for mindfulness to be effective it is aided by a very critical element…

  Alertness

  There was a famous dog trainer in the USA, who had earned the reputation of training any puppy to poo only outside within a span of just three days. He said he only used positive reinforcement.

  He would take the pooch out for a walk. Once close to a tree or a small garden, he would stand and wait until the dog went about its business. The moment the dog finished, the trainer would jump up and down shouting in sheer joy. He would punch the air, do a little dance, jig his hips and sing a happy song. Immediately after, he would hug the dog and pat it. All in all, he would display his happiness and ecstasy in all manners possible over the dog’s poo. And it worked like a charm. The dog instantly sensed that its action of peeing or pooing made the trainer very happy. It would wag its tail, circle around, jump in joy and sometimes even do somersaults. Within three days, the dog would learn to alert its owner whenever it needed to attend to nature’s call. This was done with positive reinforcement alone. Some of the clients of the dog trainer, however, complained that their dogs exhibited rather strange behaviour once they took them home. They said that the dog was definitely not fully trained. Sometimes, they would be watching an intense game of soccer or baseball, quietly sitting on the couch with their dog.

  Then their team would score an impossible goal or hit a homerun, and they would jump off the couch in glee, punch the air, shout a big ‘yes’, do a little dance and even hug their dog. What the dogs did is nobody’s guess!

  Alertness of the mind is like training the puppy. Once it is trained, and if you replicate the same circumstances, it’ll produce the same outcome. This is one of the most rewarding outcomes of correct meditation, in fact. The mindful
ness and alertness you cultivate during the meditation stays with you long after you’ve gotten up and resumed your daily activities.

  If mindfulness is the watch guard at the palace door then alertness is the police at the city gates. It is on patrol to see if there’s anything suspicious going on anywhere in the kingdom. It arrests any bad elements before they can reach and harm the royalty.

  An amateur archer is unable to hit the bull’s-eye with the same consistency as a champion archer. An expert archer is even able to shoot down moving objects like a bird. The more trained he is, the more accurately he is able to hit the mark. In due course, with practice and focus, he is able to spot and hit farther objects, so far that an ordinary person may not even see the object. The range and accuracy of his shots increases dramatically with disciplined practice.

  Alertness is the champion archer in meditation.

  When you continue to practice correctly, there comes a time when you are able to detect the emergence of the thought even before mindfulness has to guard it from interfering with your meditation. Just like there’s a tiny-tiny fraction of second from the moment you press an electric switch to when the light comes on, there’s a gap between the emergence of one thought and the next. As you develop razor-sharp alertness, you are able to see the emergence of a thought long before it manifests fully in your mind. It’s like if you were standing on a very high mountain peak, you would be able to see sunrise and sunset before those who are on the plains.

  Mindfulness and Alertness

  When I first started with intense practice, I didn’t fully understand the difference between mindfulness and alertness. They sounded almost identical to me. But after practicing for a few thousand hours, something remarkable happened. I discovered that if you are able to detect a thought with alertness just before it forms fully in your mind, the thought disappears on its own,as if alertness actually shot it down. It frees up mindfulness to do its job better and your quality of meditation goes up dramatically.