“Watch your thoughts as you watch the street traffic. People come and go; you register without response. It may not be easy in the beginning, but with some practice you will find that your mind can function on many levels at the same time and you can be aware of them all.” – Nisargadatta Maharaj
When a meditation practice is first begun, this simple activity can seem devilishly difficult; requiring a great deal of effort to be expended to maintain focus. Yet the effort doesn’t seem to make it any easier. Rather, it seems to get more and more difficult to keep the mind from wandering away. This is an important lesson unto itself. It becomes clear that the mind is not under the control that was imagined. In fact, the mind appears to be an unruly beast that is extraordinarily difficult to tame. That is why many teachers refer to it as the monkey mind. This revelation is often startling to the beginner and is itself a great insight.
Over time, however, without really understanding how, meditation gets more and more focused with less and less effort. That’s not to say that the mind doesn’t wander, it does and frequently. But, it does so less often for shorter periods of time and the mind wandering doesn’t evoke the same anger and frustration that it used to. The whole process becomes much more relaxing. The focus of meditation doesn’t seem to require the level of effort that it once did. Relaxed enjoyment of just being becomes more frequent and enduring as the meditator stops fighting the mind and instead becomes an awake detached observer.
What changes with practice? How does meditation become so much easier and relaxed? One possibility is that as practice develops, it changes the brain. Indeed, contemplative practice is known to produce alterations in the structure, connectivity, and activity of brain areas (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/neuroplasticity/ and http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/brain-electrical-activity/). These changes occur in a number of neural areas and systems. But, the changes frequently involve the frontal lobes (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/?s=frontal). This is particularly important as the frontal lobes are thought to be very important for high level cognitive processes sometimes labelled as executive function. Among these frontal lobe functions is attentional ability. It is important to focusing and maintaining attention.
In today’s Research News article “Effortless Attention as a Biomarker for Experienced Mindfulness Practitioners”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4601770/
Tanaka and colleagues investigated the electrical activity of the frontal lobes during a 40 minute session of open monitoring meditation (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/25/beginning-meditation-getting-started-4-open-monitoring-meditation/). They recorded Beta band frequencies (13-30 hertz) of frontal EEG activity and compared it between first time meditators and long-term experienced meditators with over 5 years of consistent meditation practice. The Beta band was selected as it has been shown to be associated with attention, vigilance and processing information.
The power of Beta band activity did not differ between groups during the rest period prior to meditation. During meditation Beta band power was significantly higher for the first time meditators than the experienced meditators. Since increased power in the Beta band is associated with attention, the observations suggest that the first time meditators are investing more effort into maintaining attention while the experienced meditators are using minimal effort to maintain attention. These results are in line with what is reported to occur in long-term meditators with maintaining attention described as effortless. These results also suggest the possibility that changes in the frontal lobe may underlie the effortless effort of experienced meditators.
So, regularly practice meditation letting it become effortless.
“In the beginning you will fall into the gaps in between thoughts – after practicing for years, you become the gap”. – J. Kleykamp
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
