The
successful warrior is the average man with laser-like focus
- Bruce Lee
Meditation helps
increase focus. It is not a way to practice and attain something related to the
higher being. It is just a tool that helps us create a habit of returning to
the present moment. There are different types of meditation, but the most
commonly done is the one where you practice breathing in and out.
It seems easy,
but we start noticing something we are unaware of as we go deeper. We realize
how difficult it is to concentrate just on the breath. In a few seconds, your
mind will jump to a thought. It can be any thought which might be already
present in your mind due to your current circumstances. It might be a newly
made thought which is irrelevant to the mind.
You will return
to the breath, but it will go stray again. It will frustrate you to see how
fragile your concentration is and how easily you can get distracted by your
mind, even if you are sitting alone in a dark room without distractions.
At first, I left
it for a while because it worsened my life. The thoughts that were coming were
annoying and sometimes decreased my self-worth also. I had no choice but to
return to meditation because I wanted to learn it. I habitually returned to the
breath more frequently with time and got less frustrated. To me, it was a
moment of astonishment that the lesson is to learn how not to get frustrated.
The more you do
it, the more your thoughts run away. Slowly you start taking it as a funny game
because you cannot stop your thoughts from originating, as it distracts you
from focusing on the breath. I started enjoying it. When something annoyed me,
I began to take my attention away from it and toward the task. Thus, it helped
decrease my frustration with life also. It did help me. Slowly my concentration
grew, and I could focus more on my daily activities.
I learned
different forms of meditation, which increase your compassion towards the other
people around you. I learned to meditate while washing dishes and walking.
Later, I realized I did it unintentionally during my surgeries since I am a
working doctor and saw what many people missed.
I do not
practice sitting meditation anymore, but it has been ingrained in my
personality to leave things I cannot control and focus more on what I can.
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