While meditating I’ve noticed that many things that we do automatically throughout the day are actually harmful to our ability to focus and concentrate. I shall point them out here:
- Television – I’ve noticed that the more TV I watch on the day, the harder it becomes to have a good meditation. Just like the program I’ve watched, changing cameras and shots many times a minute, my mind seems to follow the same pattern. Disconnected thoughts merge together and flip just as fast as the cameras in the TV program. For this reason, if you are having trouble meditating and focusing, if you watch more than 1 hour of TV a day, this may be a contributing factor. Of course it depends heavily on the type of program you watch. I usually watch sitcoms or fast paced movies. If you are constantly watching programs that show long, uncut, scenes of nature with a very soothing melody, you probably don’t need to worry about it!
- Music – I don’t believe that music by itself is particularly harmful. Some types of music are very good for getting us in that calm and serene mood. But throughout the day, if you do listen to music, it’s usually while you’re doing something else. Because you are forcing your brain to multitask (sing or hum along while working, for example) it gets used to receiving multiple type of inputs at the same time, so it gets used to being “busy”. Ask a great multitasker to only do one thing at a time for 10 minutes and you will see just how difficult it becomes.
- Snacking – this actually came as a surprise to me and it seems like the behavior is similar for those who fidget a lot while doing something else. It comes from a fixation on the hypnotic effect of repetition. Your brain seems to “shut down” when doing a repetitive task which offers some degree of comfort (which is why we do it in the first place) when we get “unplugged”. The problem is when it is time to stop movement, just like we do in meditation. If you are used to snack all the time, to fidget while waiting or remaining still for a couple of minutes, then you must avoid anything that seems like repetitive motions. So tapping with your fingers, snacking, making noise with your mouth or lips, all would fall in this category.
- Web Surfing – with the advent of the Internet, it is very easy to get a lot of information about any subject at once. While it’s a great learning tool, it is a double edged knife that we need to be wary of. Information is good, but the internet tends to “flood” us with information. We get used to instant search and getting our questions answered the moment we start typing them in – again, very good for fact finding, but it does terrible damage to keeping our minds still and serene. I can’t really put my finger on it yet, but I believe it is linked to the feeling of instant gratification – anything that you want in the Internet is only a click away. We are used to a speed of information that can hinder in our ability to focus our mind when we need to. Just like with ordinary websites, while we are calmly reading a column, we also see advertisements popping up and flashing – the same with our mind when we are trying to keep it still – other thoughts and sounds will suddenly “pop up” into our mind.
Being an IT professional, I understand and appreciate the many good things that our modern society, through mass production or the Internet, provides to us at a reasonable financial cost. The things I’ve mentioned today in this post are the very things that I do on a constant basis, that I am realizing now just how harmful they have been to my own cultivation. So I thought I’d write them down here, so that for those who are in a similar path and are also struggling with being able to still your minds while practicing meditation, they can find some additional tools to help them with this practice.
Too much of anything can be harmful. I certainly enjoy listening to music while I work, snacking or surfing the Internet, but I need to make a conscious effort to recognize the behaviors that are hindering my capacity to focus. Right now there is no regulation to control the amount of information that is presented to us – and unregulated behavior usually tends to uncontrolled flow.
We need to understand that while they don’t have a physical effect on us, that doesn’t mean they are harmless. They are still external factors that are affecting our minds in a constant basis – and because of that, they should also be controlled in a conscious fashion.
So if you are like me, who finds it hard to focus and keep your minds serene and still while meditating, let’s start looking at the things and actions that affect us in our daily lives, keeping in mind that anything that interacts with us, will affect us in some degree or fashion.
