What Monks Know about Focus
millersbookreview.com
millersbookreview.com
Certainly a Christian hermetic deals with the same problems as does a Buddhist monk, but I note one profound difference in their approaches. The Christian faces a dualistic world, and trains the mind to, as the article quotes one monk saying, "become strong enough to drive off the enemy’s stimuli.” The "enemy" being Satan, trying to divert the faithful. The Buddhist does not see the world as divided between warring good and evil influences, but rather views the wandering mind non-judgementally, as needing only constant gentle correction.
On the other direction, Buddhism is not so 'spiritual directed' in the prescientific history. The difference is just that Buddhism is very malleable. People can easily pick and choose the text and practices and even treat it as non religion. You can easily practice Buddhism in the modern context without the baggage.
An excellent book on this exact topic is Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor[0]. Very readable & super short. Recommended!
[0]https://www.amazon.com/Buddhism-Without-Beliefs-Contemporary...
His first point - that reading helps avoid toxic thoughts - is avoiding instead of getting to the root of the problem and fixing it. His third and "most mysterious" reason for immersive reading - that it deepens our understanding of the reading material because our minds are changing - is how education works in the first place.
The basic Buddhist teachings and practices even for lay people cover this vast domain concisely, with clear prescriptions to practice and try it out for ourselves, iterate and progress. In fact, the very first of the seven factors of awakening that we're advised to cultivate is mindfulness which underlies everything else. This commentary [1] provides an overview.
The practices are covered in more detail in one of the core teachings, MN10 - Satipatthana Sutta [2]. While reading/listening/remembering are valued as aids (it's called suta-mayā pañña - knowledge based on learning), pretty much every Buddhist monk and practising upāsaka / upāsika (layperson) are taught to practice the techniques and realise this clarity, focus, mindfulness, etc., for themselves. The instruction mentioned above - MN10 - instructs you on attention and mindfulness wherever you are and whatever you're doing, in the section on clear comprehension - you're cultivating the skill (bhāvana) where you're clear about what you're doing, why you're doing it, the consequences of your actions, etc., whether you're defecating, urinating, reading, lying down to sleep, whatever - a constant practice of mindfulness and a full-time job.
[1] https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/piyadassi/wheel0...
[2] https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/soma/wayof.html
Not so concisely I would say. What source are you refering to here? Because the Pali Cannon is very long…
https://www.bps.lk/library-search-select.php?id=bp509s
https://archive.org/details/10011341809-the-heart-of-buddhis...
I read some paragraphs of that link, and was interested to see that in a lot of places, there is a lot of repetition of the words and phrases, with appropriate variations.
I am guessing that it was a technique that was used to reinforce the learning by the listener, similar to how the Vedas and other ancient Indian scriptures were passed on by making the student repeat them a number of times and memorize them, because they were no modern things like books, and maybe even palm leaf manuscripts came sometime later. That's what I've heard, anyway, from parents and relatives.
Another possibility has occurred to me: they know Buddhism but don't want to scare away readers that have the above misconception. Actually I often find myself avoiding Buddhist terminology when I'm asked about my meditation practices.
When I started getting curious (and later serious) about meditation and then started going down the rabbit hole of understanding Buddhism, I couldn’t believe just how completely different it was than I was expecting, and how useful it was without taking on any metaphysical or otherwise religious beliefs.
I also find myself dancing around the details when I talk about meditation now. The misconceptions run deep, and I always feel compelled to clarify that I’m not talking about anything religious. I often think about how I would introduce a past me to these concepts without scaring that person away. I think it boils down to focusing on the philosophical ideas and experiential possibilities without touching any of the jargon.
Buddhism as a lived experience is a set of guidelines and practices that direct a way of living. Ask folks from India as well and they will say Hinduism is a way of life and that is their "dharma".
The word "dharma" itself is often used as a translation for the religion, however it is closest to duty. And a Hindu will often follow practices from both Hinduism and Buddhism because ultimately they aren't in conflict and religion isn't meant to be identity. If you follow it as such, there is nothing to avoid.
State Vs religion for example. How should religions affect a secular society. I'm not sure but it kind of started explicitly around the first millennium AD but some see the seeds before that embedded within from the beginning.
Superb! Chef's kiss
Pretty much all sincerely religious people would describe their religion in these terms, including christians.
Buddhism and hinduism are certainly religions as well, especially when you look at the culturally embedded practice of them in asian cultures. "Only able to respect religions that they can consider not really religions" is a whole type of guy you find a lot on the internet. But globally it's a very fringe extreme minority kind of religious experience.
You can just value and respect religious experience, even though or, radically for this venue, perhaps because they are religion.
One being Gil Fronsdals introductory courses, which addressed this directly, and jokingly referring to Buddhism as the "B-word"
Buddhism and Hinduism had active and passionately debated exchanges of ideas leading to continuous improvement of each.
Hinduism while considered to be a religion broadly speaking has a philosophical core that is rich and sophisticated in its treatment of the mind and how to observe and tame it. The thick outer layer of colorful belief systems makes it easy to reject it all as nonsense and hard to penetrate to get to the metaphysics of the mind.
The subjects discussed in this newsletter would be some of the first things a neophyte monk in 200 BC India would encounter whether couched in Buddhist or Hindu wrappers.
But related to this: the oldest Bible books are older than Buddhism. And they also contain references to meditation. So it is seems that meditation was already very common in the very old ages.
As to the second point - the Bible is older than Buddhism? What now?!? I'm surely in a different universe.
Maybe the author could have used Buddhism as reference, but wouldn't he than have to reference Hinduism too? I mean: it seems the focus of the author was a book review.
The Pali Canon, SN 35:189 (tr. Thanissaro Bhikkhu)^2:
>There are forms, monks, cognizable via the eye—agreeable, pleasing, charming, endearing, enticing, linked to sensual desire. If a monk relishes them, welcomes them, & remains fastened to them, he is said to be a monk who has swallowed Māra’s hook, who has fallen into misfortune & disaster. The Evil One can do with him as he will.
>“There are sounds cognizable via the ear…
>“There are aromas cognizable via the nose…
>“There are flavors cognizable via the tongue…
>“There are tactile sensations cognizable via the body…
>“There are ideas cognizable via the intellect—agreeable, pleasing, charming, endearing, enticing, linked to sensual desire. If a monk relishes them, welcomes them, & remains fastened to them, he is said to be a monk who has swallowed Māra’s hook, who has fallen into misfortune & disaster. The Evil One can do with him as he will.
Similarly with gentle persuasion.
Pali Canon, MN 20 (tr. Thanissaro Bhikkhu)^2:
>If evil, unskillful thoughts—connected with desire, aversion or delusion—still arise in the monk while he is attending to the relaxing of thought-fabrication with regard to those thoughts, then—with his teeth clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth—he should beat down, constrain, and crush his mind with his awareness. As—with his teeth clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth—he is beating down, constraining, and crushing his mind with his awareness, those evil, unskillful thoughts are abandoned and subside. With their abandoning, he steadies his mind right within, settles it, unifies it, and concentrates it. Just as a strong man, seizing a weaker man by the head or the throat or the shoulders, would beat him down, constrain, and crush him; in the same way, if evil, unskillful thoughts—connected with desire, aversion or delusion—still arise in the monk while he is attending to the relaxing of thought-fabrication with regard to those thoughts, then—with his teeth clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth—he should beat down, constrain, and crush his mind with his awareness. As—with his teeth clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth—he is beating down, constraining, and crushing his mind with his awareness, those evil, unskillful thoughts are abandoned and subside. With their abandoning, he steadies his mind right within, settles it, unifies it, and concentrates it.
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Also, that excerpt from MN20 is interesting because it reminded me that Thich Nhat Hanh used that as an example of needing multiple sources to get at the meaning of the teachings [1], as it's different in MN36 where the Buddha gives examples of things that ultimately didn't work for him [2]:
> "I thought: 'Suppose that I, clenching my teeth and pressing my tongue against the roof of my mouth, were to beat down, constrain, & crush my mind with my awareness.' So, clenching my teeth and pressing my tongue against the roof of my mouth, I beat down, constrained, & crushed my mind with my awareness. Just as a strong man, seizing a weaker man by the head or the throat or the shoulders, would beat him down, constrain, & crush him, in the same way I beat down, constrained, & crushed my mind with my awareness. As I did so, sweat poured from my armpits. And although tireless persistence was aroused in me, and unmuddled mindfulness established, my body was aroused & uncalm because of the painful exertion. But the painful feeling that arose in this way did not invade my mind or remain.
[1] excerpted here: https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/10712/clenching...
[2] https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.036.than.html
>When a monk is intent on the heightened mind, there are five themes he should attend to at the appropriate times. Which five?
>[...] If evil, unskillful thoughts—connected with desire, aversion or delusion—still arise in the monk while he is attending to the relaxing of thought-fabrication with regard to those thoughts, then—with his teeth clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth [...].
The object in MN36 is distinctly different:
>So it is with any brahman or contemplative who lives withdrawn from sensuality in body only, but whose desire, infatuation, urge, thirst, & fever for sensuality is not relinquished & stilled within him: Whether or not he feels painful, racking, piercing feelings due to his striving, he is incapable of knowledge, vision, & unexcelled self-awakening.
>[...] "I thought: 'Suppose that I, clenching my teeth and pressing my tongue against the roof of my mouth, were to beat down, constrain, & crush my mind with my awareness.' So, clenching my teeth and pressing my tongue against the roof of my mouth, I beat down, constrained, & crushed my mind with my awareness. Just as a strong man, seizing a weaker man by the head or the throat or the shoulders, would beat him down, constrain, & crush him, in the same way I beat down, constrained, & crushed my mind with my awareness. As I did so, sweat poured from my armpits. And although tireless persistence was aroused in me, and unmuddled mindfulness established, my body was aroused & uncalm because of the painful exertion. But the painful feeling that arose in this way did not invade my mind or remain.
The key difference lies in the context and purpose: MN20 provides tools for dealing with unwholesome thoughts as part of the path to mindfulness and concentration, prioritizing individual strategies if the prior fails--first of distraction, then consequences, then ignoring them, then relaxing them, and if all of these fail, then brute force is necessary.
MN36 is the litany of strategies that don't lead to nibbana, showing that extreme asceticism and forceful mental suppression alone do not lead to enlightenment.
In traditional Theravada, Mara, divinities, and reincarnation are very much considered real and not metaphorical. In any case, the original point stands that big-tent Buddhism does contain these aspects.
And yeah, for sure, there are plenty of divinities and whatnot in Buddhism -- a teacher of mine was just teaching on diety yoga with us last night -- but at least the way I practice with it these days is as a way to better relate to something that goes beyond physical form.
This is something I never understood about the New Age movement.
You use the word correction. Now, whether done gently or forcefully, the act of correcting something implies a path of some sort— to compensate for getting off-course while moving toward a target, if you will. If you cannot judge that you are off-course, how can you possibly (gently) correct yourself? Further, can you define a target without asserting a judgement? Can you say “Let’s aim for the stars” without simultaneously implying, not the moon, and not the earth?
Even viewing the mind as “wandering” is a strong judgement!
If the enemy is simply a name for whatever is pulling you off-course, then isn’t that embedded in any judgement of correction?
Had to dig up the quote - "The criticism of practice (called "drill and kill," as if this phrase constituted empirical evaluation) is prominent in constructivist writings. Nothing flies more in the face of the last 20 years of research than the assertion that practice is bad. All evidence, from the laboratory and from extensive case studies of professionals, indicates that real competence only comes with extensive practice... In denying the critical role of practice one is denying children the very thing they need to achieve real competence. The instructional task is not to "kill" motivation by demanding drill, but to find tasks that provide practice while at the same time sustaining interest."
Focus comes from being so addicted to your project that it’s a problem. You get pissed off that you have to eat. You find the perfect time for a two minute power shower. You stay up late and wake up after 4 hours saying “woohoo let’s fucking go!”. That’s focus. It only happens if you love what you’re doing.
If you don’t have that addiction then you don’t care about what you’re working on in the first place, so why do you want to find focus anyways? Just clock in and clock out and look for a better path.
The question is how long. Doing intense stuff needs breaks.
https://www.millersbookreview.com/p/vital-necessity-of-very-...
The best "focus techniques" are usually found in "occult" books - I quote because there is no real system and it's all disjointed and makes no sense. Anyway, here are some decent focus exercises:
1. Take a book. Count the words on a random page. Remember the word count. Count them again, confirm the word count. This is HARD - you stay focused for several minutes, avoid the temptation to actually read the content, and have to hold the current number + the last total in your mind, which stresses your WM.
2. Just count to 500+ while laying down and not moving (usually before bed). I find counting heart beats and breath affects the natural rhythm and messes with it, though Buddhism loves that.
3. Spill a bunch of marbles / legos on the floor and pick them up ONE piece at a time.
4. Dual n-back from the Brain Workshop (free, I am not associated) app. See more info here: https://gwern.net/dnb-faq
Overall, all of these were never really proven to do anything and the question whether "perfect focus" impedes creativity is open. Furthermore, one of the true tests of "perfect focus" is when you forget yourself in the moment and lose track of time - that only seems to happen when the situation is extremely stressful / interesting, and none of the techniques reproduce it. It's also unclear if any of the exercises carry over to work. They teach you what focus feels like though - you definitely can't be on your phone and doing the word count exercise. Funnily enough, video games or movies also teach you what focus should be - you are staring at the same thing for hours without needing to get up, get tea, or otherwise distract yourself.
Anyway, that was a bit of a rant, but as an "expert" in the subject matter, I am pretty hard-pressed to find anything concretely useful there. It definitely doesn't fall into the "universally good" category like "Get enough sleep, lift, do cardio, don't eat sugar, brush your teeth, don't get sun burnt every day", etc. club.
This article then suggests the classics themselves are a demonstration that disproves that anti book sentiment.
Personally, I disagree with both points of view, I think reading books is valuable, but I don't think "the classics" are a good argument why.
For me, reading is good because it is _both_ enjoyable and informative. The antibook argument suggests you read the most information dense material you can, but like, that's not going to stick because it's boring and minds work on narrative / spaced repetition.
Likewise, many folks find the classics boring, so they aren't a good example of why reading is good either.
The best argument for why reading books is good is to help someone find a book they like! Once you get started reading, you'll likely do more of it and learn a lot more than (a) just reading blogs and (b) trudging through classics that aren't appealing to you (although there are very like classics you will like)
Best quote in the article. Taking the time to read, absorb and apply a book changes us in a way no summary or audiobook could ever change.
But I agree that to really get the most out of a book, reading cover to cover is likely most immersive, impactful, maybe followed by listening to the auduibook from start to finish.
What's your beef against "reading" in audio format ?
If we push it to the deep end, reading a printout of an archived book or the version that has been past down in the family and is the last physical reminder of grandpa who we never saw alive won't have the same effect.
But we're not talking about content or ideas anymore.
Listening to audiobooks is reading the book in someone else's pace. Reading the book on your own, you are reading at your own pace.
You can look up from your book and reflect on what you read, think about how this new information explains things you observed in the past, think about how it could be used in the future. You didn't get something, you just read it again. You realized you didn't get things in the last two pages, you just go back two pages. A sentence is so deep, you need to walk around and think about things for ten minutes? You just stand up and do it.
(I know you can do the same with audiobooks but it's more inconvenient)
Listening to an audiobook and following someone else's pace also has its advantages (remember different tradeoffs), for example if you are easily distracted, the audiobook continuously playing can help you refocus and read through the book faster, not to mention being able to "read" while in motion, driving, cycling, working out.
I don't find it inconvenient. I also don't follow the logic about it being someone else's pace. I pick playback speed depending on both the content and the performance.
With an audiobook I'm constantly missing something because I'm thinking through what I've just heard.
This is me and physical books! I can get through several pages without realizing I haven't taken in a single thing, and not have any idea how far back to go. I get far enough that scanning the text to work out where I got lost isn't an advantage and often I just give up.
However, this results in me having a harder time quickly pausing, rewinding, changing speed, which in turn makes me reflect less on the content I'm reading.
I think the fact that I am driving and have some amount of my focus on that is a bigger differentiator vs a physical book for me.
While I get you're more comfortable with books, that would be the same argument against them for people with poor vision or high eye strain, don't want a physical object nor stare at a screen etc.
It's sometimes interesting to be listening to a podcast for litteraly days worth of time, and then be offered that same content in an edited book form. I wouldn't believe someone telling me I need to read the book to have the deeper understanding of the subject.
IMHO books as a support aren't magical and ideas can be communicated in better ways depending on the recepient. I feel this gets lost in many "people should be reading" discussions.
I think the author does a good job of actually testing the original point—questioning if all but a handful of books are a worthless distraction. I think the entire piece has almost nothing to do with prayer. The monks are used as a thought experiment around the value of thought for the sake of thought.
A good book is not just a bag of facts, but a tool to change your cognitive processes.
That we should not take shortcuts and expect we'll gain anything by exchanging an extended treatment of a subject with a distilled short talking point.
If you try the single word mantra thing you’ll probably find that it’s not exactly enough to keep your focus. But it’s an easy way to explain that it’s less like “praying” than about the recitation of the prayer because focusing your mind on the recitation will help you focus.
There might be a kernel of truth in there, but there's a very clear lack of distance between the subject and the author, and the writing style exacerbates this point.
I feel it's the very definition of preaching to his choir, with little to no light coming from a different side with at least some ressemblance of neutrality towards the subject. Arguably reading people's rambly praises about their passion can be nice, but there's a weird grandiose tone here that hurts the enjoyment.
He can then dig all he want about how reading is great to him and his peers.
This is not a post in a vacuum, he is answering a specific argument made elsewhere, yet dwelves in his bubble until basically the last few paragraphs to throw some plausible deniability in the end:
> If you’re Richard Hanania, no. You don’t possess a telos that would justify the effort. But if you see classics such as John Cassian’s Conferences as valuable, then most definitely yes.
Perhaps I'm just frustrated to have read the whole thing expecting something more.
Doesn‘t sound exciting.
What I was insinuating is that everyone has their priors, and not everyone is interested in starting every discussion by discarding them.
For example, if you ask me to discuss whether earth might be flat, I'll never start my reasoning from "well it might or might not so for starters let's say the probability is 50%"
To reiterate, that piece wasn't his "what did I read last week" report, it was an answer to a ongoing discussion.