Do you have dreams that you wish to pursue throughout your life? Do you find that when you try to accomplish them that your ideas that were so clear in your head vanish when you explain them to another person? Does the noise of life, the office, or others' expectations cause you to lose your focus? Here we learn how to keep our focus for extended periods of time. Learning how to focus will eliminate these noisy distractions in our life. This will help you become more single minded and stay on point. You will learn how to meditate with your ears, eyes, nose, taste and feelings.
A Single-Pointed Mind is absolutely necessary for us to live fulfilled lives. When our minds are wandering from a flower to a squirrel, we don’t have enough time to pay attention to the flower, the squirrel, or the path in between. This causes us to lose our focus and it throws us off balance. Every aspect of the world requires that we have balance. A Single Pointed Mind is when we take time to stop and smell the roses and admire the squirrel. When we simplify our minds this is meditation.
If we are riding the merry-go-round we will have a hard time stopping and focusing on what is going on outside the merry-go-round. If we stand on a solid rock, even the furthest views become clear. It may be difficult to imagine at first, however even having dinner with our family can be quite enjoyable when everyone is talking at once. Here we can revel in the noise. Meditation would require that we allow each person to speak uninterrupted and the rest of the family would take time to contemplate on the feelings the family member was explaining. There is a time and place for both situations. There is a time and place to be on a solid rock, compassionate with our family, and enjoying the noise that all of them make at once, and to have the ability to focus on one person and to hear about what they are expressing. We are going to be talking about being simple or Single Point Minded, and this is meditation.
You may find yourself worrying about the future or regretting past mistakes that you may or may not have made. Great growth comes from understanding the past and planning for the future. Meditation requires focus on one small part of the future, the past, or the present so that we can become fully engaged in the thing that we are focusing on. This would be like at your wedding ruminating and gossiping with others over your past relationships, and thinking about all of the problems or opportunities of the future, when the most important thing to be engaged in is the moment right now that you are currently living.
When building relationships, meditating on the past or the future should all be done way before you begin building the relationship. At the wedding ceremony the only thing that should be focused on is your significant other. The job of organizing the wedding ceremony is the job of the best man and the bridesmaid, the couple only should focus on each other.
Currently we are working on a time machine, but until it is perfected we need to spend most of the time focusing on what is happening right now. This is what people mean by the term being present, being mindful, meditating, and using mindfulness.
How do we teach ourselves to meditate? First we have to get out of the Lizard Brain. The Lizard Brain deals with many aspects of food, fear, and procreation of our lives and all of the crap of the past that we have no ability to change. The Lizard Brain will start to focus on a myriad of little problems and find those solutions. It is focused on stress from 10 different places, fear from 20 different places, procreation from 40 different sources, and everything is covered in shit.
To get out of The Lizard Brain the easiest thing to do is to breathe five cycles of breath where you are breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. While doing this if you put your arms up in the air like a “V” you will be tricking your brain into thinking that you are victorious. Finally if you can, while doing the previous two, think about all of the wonderful things that you see yourself doing in the future. Think about pursuing all of those notes and ideas on the stickies that you have been creating with your passions, motivations, scheduling and finding your tribe.
These exercises help get you into the Human Brain and out of the Lizard Brain. While in the Human Brain when you direct your focus somewhere, you will be able to keep it there. This will help give you a single pointed mind.
Chanting, singing or making music will also help you eliminate noise in your head. We can make sure that we are in a situation where we will not be bothered by other people demanding our time and attention. When people focus on the ringing of a bell or any kind of white noise from a heater, a/c unit or any noise of a machine, they are eliminating the noise inside their head. You can also focus on a rock, wall or candle. The simpler or less complicated the object is, the easier it is for us to meditate.
Once we have something simple to focus on, then we can become more aware of our breath. When we breathe a little bit more into the lungs or out of our lungs with awareness, then we are more aware of our life. As we bring awareness to our breath and slow it down or speed it up, it causes our body to become more alkaline. This helps our body to neutralize the toxins in our body which tend to be more acidic.
As we become more aware of our breath, we move our attention away from the worries of the world, and into meditation.
Now pay attention to the beat of your heart. If you have a heart monitor nearby or one that you can borrow, go get it. If you can amplify your heart so that you can watch or listen to it, do that as well. Is the rhythm slow or fast, does it go hard then soft, what is the exact rhythm of the heart? Does it start as one sound and morph into another, or is there a distinct point in time where the sound of it exists and where it does not?
Notice your posture as it is. What is your breathing like in the position that you are in? What can you see in this position that you are in? What sounds can you hear in the room that you are in? What smells can you smell in this position?
Now let’s examine our posture. Change your posture for a better breath. Change your posture for more awareness. This is not “straighten up your back.” posture that your mom may have been telling you to have at the dinner table. What we are talking about here is for you to be comfortable and poised/attentive. Watch the video on how to change your posture for breath.
Remove all judgements and plans from your mind as you do this. As time goes on you will enhance your ability to be in the present or in the moment. You will be able to find new things to meditate on.
As we improve in our meditation we will be eliminating unnecessary noise. We will learn to make stress our friend. We will not become overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of life around us. Having a single pointed mind will help us make better decisions and have fewer negative consequences in life. Gaining control of stress will help our bodies to become physically healthy and mentally healthy. Having a single pointed mind will allow us to let energy flow to the things that we find important in our lives.
You are great and wonderful!