How Can I Maintain Focus?

We can become very distracted in this busy, complicated life that we lead. There is so much to do, but it is necessary to maintain focus so that we can filter out what distracts us. By maintaining focus, we can be on purpose and be deliberate in our lives as well as choose and set priorities.

Focus is very simple. It means simply being in this moment - being present.

The mind is capable of holding onto many things, but at any given moment, it is actually only focusing on one thing. Focus can be so broad that the one thing is actually a collection of many things, but those many things become one complex system.

Focus can be achieved through the traditional tools of meditation. Helping people sustain and develop focus is very often the Buddhist context for practice.

In the past, as I was teaching beginners to learn how to focus through meditation, I would say, "Try it out for ten years. Give it a shot. See how it goes and then decide." What a pleasure it is to be a beginner for that long without having to assume that you know something.

I think there is great value in that frame of reference. However, I no longer think it has to take that long. It does not take very long to notice the beauty of a blooming cactus in spring or the heat of the desert in the summer time. It does not take very long to notice that you caught the eye of a deer, or a stranger on the street. It does not take very to notice that you glimpsed the ocean - maybe from a distance as you drive down the coast - noticing elements of the seascape.

In refining your focus, you are becoming free of anxiety and you are becoming more on purpose in your life.

There are specific tools that allow us to focus, but very often, they are taught as disciplines. We are often taught that we have to separate ourselves and our minds from the environment at large and somehow whip it into shape, become masters of ourselves, rather than the holistic approach that allows for the entire process to become quite natural.

Here is an illustrative exercise you can follow along with quite easily:

Look at a spot ahead of you somewhere around fifteen or thirty degrees above your eye level.

Just fix your focus on that spot like a laser beam, excluding everything that’s around you. Focus like a laser beam at that spot ahead of you and above your eye level.

You will notice that your attention will want to move outward, taking in the periphery of your vision. Keep your eyes anchored to that central spot, but notice you can extend your arms out to the sides to the limit of your field of view.

Move your fingers and notice that without looking at them, you can actually have as clear of a view of the movement of your fingers as you do of that spot in front of you.

Notice that you tend to feel emotionally clear and uplifted in this state of expanded awareness.

See if you can conjure fear or depression. It is actually quite difficult.

People find that it’s not only a state in which it is very difficult to get anchored into negative states, but that it is a learning state as well. We learn very deeply, not just from external stimulus, but from within our own frames of reference.

This is a process of simply looking into space, not at some particular thing. The aim is to take in the entire environment, and then take in yourself, your internal experience, your hearing, and your internal thoughts as part of that expanded awareness.

This is a very short and simplified exercise, but it is a great example of using expanded awareness to maintain heightened focus. n