I’m the same poster from last week who asked about the exercises in this book.
So over the week I’ve consciously tried to silence my mind while concentrating on the second hand.
I feel that I can’t silence it completely for longer than 20 seconds or so while staring at the second hand.
What I experience is kind of like passing thoughts murmuring, just like sounds outside of birds, passing vehicles, but my concentration on the second hand itself is constant.
The exercise with the mental sound illustrates this too: I turn up the volume on my “OM”, there are whispers in my mind that come up, but I’m only paying attention to the OM just as if I’m having a conversation in a room with many people, there are sounds all around but I’m only paying attention to the conversation at hand.
Is my current degree of concentration sufficient to continue on, given that I’ve exceeded 5 minutes on each exercise?
I don’t doubt that concentration to the degree that all other thoughts are blocked out is possible, but I’m not sure that this is the required degree of concentration if for example one adds the head-moving component to the exercise too. At a minimum, one would have the intention to move one’s head, which is also a thought.
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branchandroot
Mouni Sadhu’s Concentration
Date: 2021-05-17 06:19 am (UTC)So over the week I’ve consciously tried to silence my mind while concentrating on the second hand.
I feel that I can’t silence it completely for longer than 20 seconds or so while staring at the second hand.
What I experience is kind of like passing thoughts murmuring, just like sounds outside of birds, passing vehicles, but my concentration on the second hand itself is constant.
The exercise with the mental sound illustrates this too: I turn up the volume on my “OM”, there are whispers in my mind that come up, but I’m only paying attention to the OM just as if I’m having a conversation in a room with many people, there are sounds all around but I’m only paying attention to the conversation at hand.
Is my current degree of concentration sufficient to continue on, given that I’ve exceeded 5 minutes on each exercise?
I don’t doubt that concentration to the degree that all other thoughts are blocked out is possible, but I’m not sure that this is the required degree of concentration if for example one adds the head-moving component to the exercise too. At a minimum, one would have the intention to move one’s head, which is also a thought.