Blog Photos By: Joe Longo
In listening to a psychotherapist / mindfulness teacher, I was struck by the assuredness that the methodology he employs is “best practice.” Over and over, he declared what the “research” shows regarding mindfulness vs. “other” “focus” based practices of meditation. Proof existing in studies focusing on Vipassana meditation showed superior results to the “other” methodologies used in the control group.
The bias with this kind of “scientific research” brings up questions that run beyond the scope of my conjecture.
What then of “studies” investigating “flow states” such as those experienced in music or sport? Though I agree with the aforementioned gentlemen’s understanding that mindfulness and focus can be seen in different categories, I see little benefit in a hierarchical ranking of best practices.
Much like other practices based on tradition, mindfulness teachers commonly allude to, if not overtly state their argument of superiority over tools such as: the use or employment of an anchor in one’s meditation practice is inferior to an open awareness practice.
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I have often encountered the intellectual battle between musicians who read music exclusively and those who improvise exclusively. Improvisers will allude to the lack of heart a “reader” employs while the other may imply an absence of a brain. Again, why choose?
This consistent (and mostly useless) battle of right and left, yin and yang, produces only losers who are sure of their own superiority. Even those who claim to be looking at the Tao and admonishing those who “for a time” pick a path are losing sight of the first lesson:
“The Tao that can be explained is not the eternal Tao”
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For nearly 34 years I have had a daily practice of focus. This translates into over 12,000 days of a meditative practice where a single object or task was held in my conscious attention to the exclusion of all other. For the first decade of the aforementioned, I mostly focused exclusively on the metaphorical tree that is Western Classical Violin. It is a beautiful tree, though it does little to inform one of the forest of observable objects we exist in.
Later: philosophical pursuits, practices of religiosity, improvisational music and composition, yoga asana, fitness, seated (anchored) meditation and pranayama, journaling and others omitted from this list would all become forms of my daily “focus” driven practices; To return to a metaphor used previously: practices of looking at a single tree and developing tools to infer the nature of the part of the forest I was existing in.
One never sees the whole forest, rather we can view the section of the forest in which we are “fully” present, seeing how the trees are in relationship with each other as well as the elements they are interacting with, as is the nature of mindfulness; or an individual might stare one pointedly at a single branch at the exclusion of all others, to come to an understanding of the structure of that tree, it’s inhabitants and the underlying root system(s).
So... Focus?
If you know me superficially you may feel I fall into the camp of focus. I have far more focus driven practices than I do mindfulness one’s. Similar to the idea expressed by the mindfulness practitioner I mentioned earlier: focus does not teach one to investigate where the thoughts come from, but rather how to single out a thread worth pulling on; But can not the thread, if properly unraveled, lead back to the source?
Noted: Most people get caught up at a knot in the thread and cease to investigate further into the matter, just endlessly picking at the knot or returning to areas of the string that vibrate. The previous metaphor fits much onto my initial one pointed approach to music, but a well rounded “renaissance” approach to focus as a Michelango or Einstein employed or as Miyamoto Musashi espoused in The Book of Five Rings assuredly reaches past the benefit of investigating a single “branch” of study and seeing the oneness in the singular study of many individual branches of inquiry.
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Though I have a preference and I find a “talent” in engaging with practices and teaching that are focus based, I also see its limits and the benefit in seeing the whole forest without being fixated on a single tree in the midst of its vastness.
My intentional practice of engaging with psychedelics is of the more clear lenses I use to speak on the unspeakable. Depth is easier to muse upon, but vastness escapes words. The void is no thing, so to speak on it is to diminish it to something it isn’t. Yin and Yang, as abstract as they may be, can be classified but their interplay exists in endless permutations. The current science shows psychedelics turning off areas of the brain rather than turning on new ones as the previous psychedelic advocates liked to preach. This isn’t a negative. Rather than finding our usual areas of neurological focus our consciousness is rerouted and notices things that were always present but had been bypassed in favor of a familiar road, well traveled and worn. Comfort exists in focus. I have the ability to see that which may be causing an anxiety and work on it. Though mindfulness also can contain comfort: I can see that my anxieties rerouted will only become new anxieties until I realize “my” anxieties don’t belong to me and the me that experiences them is not the only me that inhabits my body.
See the trees but never lose sight of the forest. All roads lead home. Some roads are more direct for certain people, and others need to take the long way to appreciate home when they arrive.
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Whether Yoga, violin, fitness or meditation I teach private lessons and in some cases group classes that revolve around focus. If you are interested in developing technique in these areas please reach out; I can help.
If you are seeking out mindfulness teachers, many exist around you but as it is not my area of “focus” 😉
Blog Photos By: Joe Longo
