Thich Nhat Hanh - How to Focus

Mindfulness is the miracle that can restore wholeness to our dispersed mind, calling it back so we can live fully each moment of life.

Mindfulness always brings concentration, and concentration brings insight.

When you drink your cup of tea, if you are concentrated and you focus your attention on it, then the cup of tea becomes a great joy for you. Mindfulness and concentration bring about not only insight but happiness as well.

The more mindful we are, the more concentrated we are. The word for concentration in Sanskrit, samdhi, means steadiness, non-interruption, not wavering. The object of your concentration may be a cloud, a flower, or your anger. If your focus dies, and sometime later is born again, its not concentration. In the state of concentration, you keep your focus steady, even, and continuous. When our mindfulness and concentration are powerful, we can make a breakthrough and get an insight. Insight brings understanding and has the power to liberate us from ignorance, discrimination, craving, fear, anger, and despair.

You can enjoy every moment of your daily life when you have mindfulness and concentration. When I walk mindfully from one place to another, I enjoy my in-breath, my out-breath, and my steps. When you are concentrated, you sink deeply into what is there. When you contemplate a flower, you get in touch very profoundly with the flower, which is a wonder of life.

When you hold your cup of tea and enjoy it, you get in touch deeply with your tea and enjoy the peace, joy, and freedom that is offered to you by drinking tea. Freedom is our practice. If you have some freedom and solidity brought to you by mindfulness and concentration, peace and joy are possible.

In everyday life we are often lost in forgetfulness. Our mind chases after thousands of things, and we rarely take the time to come back to ourselves. When we have been lost in forgetfulness for a long time, we lose touch with ourselves and feel alienated from ourselves. Conscious breathing is a marvelous way to return to ourselves. When we are aware of our breath, we come back to ourselves as quick as a flash of lightning. Like a child who returns home after a long journey, we feel the warmth of our hearth, and we find ourselves again. To come back to ourselves like that is already a remarkable success on the path of mindfulness, concentration, and insight.

With conscious breathing we come in contact with life in the present momentthe only moment when we can touch life. When you focus your attention on your breath, you find out very quickly that you are a living reality, present here and now, sitting on this beautiful planet Earth. Around you there are trees, sunshine, and blue sky. Mindfulness and concentration bring you in touch with the wonders of life and allow you to value and treasure these things.

To breathe with full awareness is a miraculous way to untie the knots of regret and anxiety and to come back to life in the present moment. If were imprisoned by regrets about the past, anxiety for the future, or attachment and aversion in the present, were not free to be in contact with life. Were not really living our life. When we breathe in and out and follow our breath with attention all the way through from the beginning to the end, were already at ease, no longer dominated by our anxieties and longings. As we breathe with full awareness, our breath becomes slower and more regular; peace and joy arise and become more stable with every moment. Relying on our breathing, we come back to ourselves and are able to restore the oneness of our body and mind and become whole again. When body and mind are together, we are fully present, fully alive, and able to be in real contact with what is happening in the present moment.

We make our breathing the first object of our concentrated mind. We put all our attention on our breath, so that mind and breath become one. After first focusing on the breath, we can then practice focusing on other phenomena. When we use our breathing to bring all the energy of mind consciousness to one point, our confusion stops, and we are able to sustain the energy of our mind on one object. As we continue to practice, the energy of concentration helps us penetrate deeply into the heart of the object of our focus, and we gain insight and understanding.

We can speak of feelings as being pleasant, painful, or neutral. Practicing meditation, we discover how interesting it is to look into our neutral feelings. As we sit on the grass with our mind elsewhere, we may have a neutral feeling. But when we bring our awareness to the neutral feeling, we find that its really quite wonderful to be sitting on the grass in the sunshine. As we observe the river of our feelings with mindfulness and concentration, we find that many neutral feelings are actually quite pleasant.

When there is anxiety, irritation, or anger in us, we cannot decide clearly what to do. When you come back to yourself and breathe mindfully, your minds attention has only one object: your breath. If you continue to breathe in and out mindfully, you maintain that state of presence and freedom. Your mind will be clearer and you will make better decisions. Its much better to make a decision when your mind is like that rather than when it is in the sway of fear, anger, unclear thinking, and worry.