In This Episode…

This is a concentration meditation practice that you can have in your spiritual toolkit for when you’re in a period of intense distraction with a lot on your mind. If you ever have difficulty staying focused during meditation, you can turn to this practice to help you deepen your focus, your absorption, your ability to be fully present and focused on the practice. — Craig Hamilton

In “Foundations of Meditation – Part Three: Concentration Practice,” Craig explores the importance of developing a reliable concentration practice to support our ability to focus during meditation.

If you ever struggle to stay present and attentive during meditation, you’re not alone. In our world of constant distractions, many of us find it increasingly challenging to give all of our attention to anything.

Concentration is a valuable tool, especially during times of intense distraction or when the mind feels overwhelmed. By incorporating concentration exercises, you can enhance your ability to stay present and fully absorbed in your meditation.

This episode introduces a simple concentration practice that can provide immediate and noticeable improvements in your meditation focus and consistency.

Join Craig and learn why having a reliable concentration practice can be a valuable tool in your spiritual toolkit.

If you haven’t already, be sure to listen to “Episode 13: Foundations of Meditation – Part Two,” where Craig highlights four foundational principles for generating a transformative container on your meditation cushion: commitment, humility, environment, and posture. And in “Episode 10: Foundations of Meditation – Part One,” Craig explores motivation, intention, and strategies to overcome that pesky inner critic, a common obstacle in meditation.

If you’re interested in exploring more of Craig’s approach to meditation, you’re invited to tune in to a 90-minute online workshop Craig will be hosting called Meditation 2.0 – The Miracle of Direct Awakening. Register for free at: FreeMeditationWorkshop.com

Discover More about Craig’s Awakened Life Membership Program

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

What do I mean by foundations?

There are concentration meditation practices that can help support your ability to stay focused. There’s work on our motivation and intention that can be a powerful driver for all of our practice.

There are also environmental factors that support the quality of our practice. There are basic postural elements—simple, physical aspects about how we hold ourselves.

Why Are Practice Foundations Important?

None of these are the main event, but each of these elements, if we get them right, will powerfully support the more radical liberation and awakening practices that we’re doing here.

This foundation isn’t something you build just once. You build it initially but then you keep reinforcing, strengthening, and deepening it. There are aspects of enlightened motivation and intention that you can’t fully access at first. These aspects deepen as you progress on the path.

You have a taste of awakening that helps inform your motivation to practice, but as you have more profound experiences of awakening, you start to understand and get a deeper sense of what it is. This can powerfully increase your motivation to practice. You begin to really understand why it matters so much.

Building a Foundation of Concentration and Meditation

In previous episodes, I’ve spoken about distraction and about how meditators often struggle with it. We find our mind is busy, often referred to as a monkey mind, a busy mind that distracts us from our practice.

What we’re talking about is what would traditionally be called a lack of concentration. We’re not good at concentrating on the practice, so we’re letting our attention wander all over the place away from the practice.

Fortunately, concentration is something we can cultivate. In many of the wisdom traditions, extensive concentration meditation was part of the regimen. In fact, in some traditions it’s all about concentration meditation practice. More often than not, those practices are a form of mindfulness meditation.

Understanding Concentration Meditation in the Context of Direct Awakening

Here in the practice of direct awakening, which is the approach to meditation that I teach, learning concentration meditation is not essential. I could easily make the argument that you don’t need any concentration to be free. You’re simply learning how to bring your attention to your true nature.

It doesn’t matter if your mind is active or if you’re experiencing a lot of emotional upheaval. These are powerful times to just be awake and practicing awakening. So that’s a valid argument and it’s one I do make.

But because I’m trying to lay down some foundations, I believe this can be a supportive addition to our practice. It’s worthwhile to spend a little time learning a basic concentration and meditation practice that we can draw on, particularly during times of unusual distraction or agitation in our lives.

Using Concentration Meditation To Calm Your Mind

For instance, you might generally be able to do the meditation practices well, but suddenly, with a lot going on in your life—be it difficult situations or exciting opportunities—you find it hard to focus.

This could be a powerful moment for waking up. We could say, “Wow, even amidst all of that, see if you can recognize your true nature that isn’t grasping for any of it or resisting any of it.” We can have dramatic awakenings amidst difficulty. It can be a powerful catalyst.

However, it might also be challenging to meditate during those times. The mental chatter is overwhelming or the tension or anxiety is all-consuming. During such times, it can be helpful to do a bit of concentration and meditation practice as a precursor to the direct awakening practice. Meaning you do a little concentration practice before you get into the awakening practice.

I talked about extreme circumstances for any of us, but there are also those of us who always find our mind in overdrive when we try to meditate. If you’re in that category, concentration meditation can help draw your focus into one place before engaging in deeper practice.

Concentration Is a Skill You Can Develop

I’m going to teach you a simple practice you can do to develop concentration. I’m going to guide you in a practice that you can do for the sake of developing concentration itself.

Unlike direct awakening practices, these concentration meditation practices are a form of skill development. Concentration is a skill, a cognitive skill, and you’re practicing to improve it. The great thing about concentration practice is, if you do it diligently, you will get better at it very quickly. The results from consistent concentration and meditation practice are remarkable in terms of building concentration.

A Simple Concentration Meditation Practice

The simplest practice for developing concentration is paying attention to the cycle of your breath.

So this is a concentration meditation practice of staying with our breath, which is always happening. There is a cycle of breath that is always occurring. We don’t cause it. It doesn’t require any of our attention. It’s just happening.

The goal of this practice is to bring our full attention to the movement of the breath in and out and to stay fully attentive to the cycle of breath throughout the entire cycle—and the next cycle and the next.

If done perfectly, your attention would never leave the breath cycle. Your attention stays with the breath 100% of the time during your meditation practice.

Now, of course, that’s a very lofty goal for most of us starting a practice like this. So we’re not going to be worried about what percentage of the time we’re able to stay with it. Our only goal is to stay with it in every moment. Whenever our attention wanders, and we notice that’s happened, we come directly back to paying attention to the breath. And that’s all we do.

What It Really Means To Focus on the Breath

When I say staying with the breath, you don’t need to be too concerned about exactly how you’re paying attention to the breath. If you just take a moment now to observe the movement of breath, you’ll notice that the sensation of breathing is detectable in a number of different ways.

You might feel the breath going in and out of your nose or mouth. You might hear the breath. You’ll notice that your abdomen and chest rise and fall as the breath goes in and out.

This practice doesn’t require us to focus intently on any one of those things. Just be easeful and open about how you pay attention to the breath.

Whatever part of the breath draws your attention, whatever is easiest to pay attention to—maybe it’s the expansion and contraction of your belly, maybe it’s the sound of the breath going in and out of your nostrils, or something else—doesn’t matter.

The key is to stay with it.

The Three Parts of the Breath Cycle

There are three parts to the breath cycle that we’re going to pay attention to:
the in-breath, the out-breath, and the pause between the out-breath and the next in-breath. Our goal is to stay with the breath cycle through all three phases.

Let’s just do it now for a couple minutes, and then I’ll add a few more instructions. This can also be done with your eyes open or closed.

For a couple minutes now, give all of your attention to the full period of the in-breath, the full period of the out-breath, and during the pause between the out-breath and the in-breath, just allow your attention to go to the stillness of that space between breaths. Just pay attention to the quality of stillness that’s in the body, the stillness in awareness.

And we begin.

Paying Close Attention to the Breath

One thing that can help us maintain focus on the breath is to realize that the in-breath and the out-breath have different parts to the cycle. There’s the beginning of the in-breath, the middle of the in-breath, the end of the in-breath, that then leads to the beginning of the out-breath, the middle of the out-breath, and the end of the out-breath.

There’s the beginning of the pause, the middle of the pause, the end of the pause. The point here is not to break the cycle into discrete parts, but to stay with it through all parts of the cycle.

The in-breath takes a little while. Stay with it the entire time. The out-breath takes a little while. Stay with it, beginning, middle and end. The pause also lasts a little while. Stay with that stillness the whole time without wandering away.

Bring Your Attention Back to the Breath

When doing a concentration meditation practice like this, it’s natural that our attention wanders away from the practice from time to time. Some of us will find that it wanders over and over again.

It doesn’t matter how many times it wanders. Each time you realize, “Oh, my attention has wandered off onto my mind. I’m trying to solve a problem or process some past event or plan something, I’ve moved away from staying with the breath.”

Immediately, without hesitation and without question, return to paying attention to the breath. Wherever you are in the cycle, return immediately to it without any problem or distress or worry or concern. It’s just what happens. It’s how this process works.

Each time you come back to following the breath, return to it with a little more intensity, a little more focus than you had before. Re-engage the practice with more determination to focus. Not with any fear, not with any tension, not with any worry, just with greater resolve and focus.

I invite you now to gently let go of your concentration and meditation practice. You no longer need to pay attention to the breath. Allow your attention to relax and open. If your eyes are closed, you can open them, look around.

There’s no need to try to hold on to anything you experienced doing this practice, but just notice the effect it has on your consciousness and psyche, as you go through your day. And with that, we’ll bring our practice to a close. Thank you.