Concentration Meditation

A Journey to the core

Who Am I

Concentration meditation consist of focusing your attention on one thing to the exclusion of everything else. The most recommended object of concentration is the breath, because it is something you do naturally. You don’t need to think about it in order to do it and you can’t stop it. With any other object of concentration, you run the risk of thinking about it instead of simply witnessing it and of forgetting to do it.

Focusing on the your object of concentration will have the effect of shutting down every other “object” one by one. It might start with simple things like your memory, your thoughts. Then the annihilation will spread to your sense of space or time. Ultimately, everything will cease to exist except you. You and everything your know will be absorbed into the breath and become it. In that moment you will get a glimpse of who or what you really are. If you exist in that moment (and you will exist more than ever), then everything else is superfluous. All you are is this pure existence.

As you come out of your meditation, everything will come back: the sense of self, space, time, thoughts, memories. You are you again, or so it seems. Now you knows from first hand experience what/that you really are.

BECOMING ONE WITH THE ALL

Sit comfortably in a room where you won’t be distracted and close your eyes. Breathe strongly through the nose to identify a spot on the rim of your nose (not too far inside and not outside either, somewhere in between). There should be a spot in either one of your nostrils where you feel the air more clearly than any other spot. Once you’ve found it, try breathing normally and see if you still feel the air on that spot. If you don’t, gradually increase the strength of your breath until you feel the spot again. Once you have that spot, the exercise starts.

This is the simple part and also the part that will keep you occupied for a lifetime. Concentration meditation is the practice of focusing on that spot you have just found to the exclusion of any other thought. Whenever a distraction comes, acknowledge it without following it. Don’t judge it. Don’t blame yourself for being distracted. Once the distraction is gone, come back to the sensation of breath in your nostril. If, by accident, you follow a distraction or if you get emotionally involved with it, it will drag you into a train of thoughts. Should you suddenly realize you’ve been following a train of thought for a few seconds or even minutes, don’t blame yourself and don’t panic. You’ve got this. With time, there will be less and less distractions and you will handle them quicker. This is concentration meditation.

The path to Concentration

The lifestyle

Practice Concentration Meditation once a day for as long a session as it is comfortable to you. Ten minutes every day is better than one hour every now and then. Consistency is what matters. Aim at reaching one hour a day. Remember, meditation is not something you do. It is something that is.

The major milestones of your progress should be:

No effort. You can meditate for ten minutes a day without it feeling like a chore.
No distraction. You can meditate without having thoughts that take your concentration away from the breath.
No change (i.e. stillness). Your meditation takes you to a place of suspension where everything is perfectly still.

That’s it, you’ve got your main concentration meditation exercise you can practice every day for the rest of your life. This is the same I’ve been practicing for years and I still do it today. If any question arises, feel free to contact me. It might get strange at some points (especially when distractions stop appearing for a little while). Don’t panic. It’s only sensations. The mind is simply not used to this mental silence so it has a tendency to fill it with the Stuff of the Unconscious. If it gets so weird that you need to talk, I’m here.