Depth & Breadth of Concentration - Part 2 of 3

As I say this was one of the things that really sold me on the whole meditative Endeavour initially was wow.

There's this taste.

Of this concentrated state and I can see as I work on it, it deepens Anne. I'm able to maintain it in more and more complex situations and that always like working on things I'd always like developing things skills. Stuff like that, so it's like this is cool. I can develop this.

It.

Is intrinsically fulfilling?

It makes uncomfortable experience is less problematic.

And it's not all over the world. It's like really cool. I'm late to People from very different cultures from very different belief systems.

But they shared this practice, they had a word for it. They understand doing the same thing they did.

And that was sort of cool to feel connected in that sense to our worldwide phenomenon.

May high except Mihai has.

Been able to actually demonstrate with kredible research this intrinsic reward that goes with tasting high concentration and he coined a word for it is good news in this bad news. The good news is it's a great word that means the intrinsic reward that goes with high concentration.

So that's the good news the bad news is Unfortunately it's the same word that I use for a different phenomenon, so that could cause some confusion for People working with in my system.

Mihai wrote a book with the title So what was the what does he call it flow and if you talk about a flow state among People that are interested in consciousness or this kind of thing they'll they'll know that that refers to that now in my system. It refers to working with change and Energie and that kind of thing. Now there of course not entirely unrelated because, as you.

Get more and more focused there's more more of a tendency to be aware of.

How things change and the underlying energies and forces but conceptually in basic mindfulness and positive psychology flow refer to things that are distinct, but it's the same word. That's used in English. There is another term. That's commonly used in the athletic world for states of high concentration and you know what that term is zombie in the zone and so forth so there are colloquial words for this.

In Ordinary, English because it's such an important phenomenon.

Both in terms of.

Sensory issues of being more fulfilled suffering less and in terms of object if performance abilities. It's an important notion so I think it's useful to create a?

A definition of concentration power my definition of concentration power or just concentration for short.

Is the ability to attend to what you consider to be relevant?

At a given time.

So notice what I said the ability to attend to what you consider to be relevant so you decide what's relevant cried at a given time?

And what's relevant for you might not be relevant for some other person. Also at one time, something is relevant another time, some other thing is relevant.

Often, in the definition of concentration there is a mention of restricting the intention.

Narrowing the attention that's not in my definition of concentration.

Certainly it's true that there are contracted flavors of concentration if you place your attention on the breath going in and out at your nostrils or the sensation of your abdomen rising and falling that's those are very small touch sensations.

And if you hold your attention there that will you have now deemed that small sensation to be? What's relevant your attention wanders you bring it back, long as you bring it back. So yes, that is a contractive flavor of concentration.

And there is a place for that.

However, let's say that you were to intentionally create a positive image.

At the very same time, intentionally create some internal talk that match that image. An talk that you repeated like a mantra over and over again.

And at the same time were to generate positive emotional feeling related to that image. In that talk and you were do spread your awareness over all three of these sensory phenomenon simultaneously, and hold that.

That would be a very expensive flavor of concentration would be filling your entire subjektive space with awareness, but that would develop the same flavor the same taste.

As you would get by focusing in a very small part of your experience so my teachers, Sasaki Row. She says everybody thinks.

That somebody means narrowing the focus but you have to understand there are 2 flavors of somebody contractive salati and expensive selecting your driving the car once by and large relevant is the touch sight sound touch, meaning the physical linkage with this car sites, meaning the sites of the road sounds. We need the sounds of the road what's largely relevant in driving the cars outside some?

Which is actually a fairly broad focus?

And once you understand this.

You can drive in rush hour traffic.

For 2 hours.

Arrive at your destination.

And you will be in the same state of deep repos as if you had.

Had your awareness focused on the tip of your nose for 2 hours.

In formal seated minute of practice.

Without the attention away from it would be no less of a deeper experience even though it was.

Very large and complex piece of the sensor event.

Another misconception is that in order to develop concentration you're always going to be fighting with yourself.

Because.

Other things come up and you have to sort of push them away or push them down in order to hold onto the thing that you're concentrating on.

I spent many, many years.

Wrongly practicing concentration without realizing it. I was suddenly trying to suppress things I would decide what I wanted to focus on in my early period of practice that was typically the brow.

I would be focusing on the breath.

And then one other things, would come up without realizing it.

I was suddenly tensing around them. I was suddenly trying to push them out of awareness. I was suddenly trying to push them down. I had this subliminal agenda.

That was aversive to anything that was a distraction.

And that creates tension and that dissipates energean that hurts it sort of comfortable.

And what we want is that the concentration practice being positive feedback loop. The more focused you are the better you feel.

And if you have these subtle tendencies. Or maybe not so subtle tendencies to be fighting with the things that aren't inside your focus or in some way like tensing around them, pushing them down. Not wanting them to be there that that makes it an uncomfortable experience to focus your literally fighting with yourself and you have to sort of be careful, and train train yourself to.

Focus on what you do relevant without sort of rejecting all the other stuff.