Today I’m thinking about focus; mental clarity; concentration. Certainly a weak area for me, I tend to be forgetful, kinda ditzy. I concentrate best when I’m juggling two or three thoughts. Which drives Arthur crazy, because he can only focus on one thing at a time.
In meditation, we try to focus on a single thought. Meditate on a tree. Meditate on a mandala. Meditate on darkness. Meditate on Lakshmi. And in the process of meditation, we discover how unfocused our minds truly are, how we get pulled into distractions and down random paths; how undisciplined and chaotic our thought processes can be.
So today I’m visualizing a meditation on concentration itself.
If you like, burn sage or rosemary (or inhale fresh rosemary). Both herbs sharpen the mind.
Think about work you have to do that requires focus. Hold an image of that work in your mind. See yourself doing the work. Perhaps you need to write, or to balance your bank accounts, or organize your closet. See the work getting done.
See yourself completing the task. Visualize it through—from beginning to end. Observe yourself focusing on this work. If you like, go back to the beginning and see it through again.
Now acknowledge yourself for completing this work. Perhaps you felt distracted. Perhaps, during the course of visualizing, your mind wandered away. Notice also that it came back, that despite whatever wandering or distraction you experienced, you made it to the end. Allow yourself to enjoy the pleasure of a completed task, and notice that this is focus. This is accomplishment.
Stay with that feeling, of accomplishment, and notice it required focus in order to have that feeling.
