Hey guys,

I occasionally hear in this community that a person should renew their focus 10 times a second while doing concentration meditation.

I thought this advice might be a bit hard to understand for a lot of people, as we don't necessarily ave a good mental model how long one second is.

So I made a click track and uploaded it - it's one minute of clicks repeating 10 times a second. You can listen online or download here: https://soundcloud.com/user306229778/10hz-clicks

I've had some interesting experiences using this as an object of concentration practise. Try listening to it and experiencing each individual click with presence of mind. It's fun.

Cheers

[quote=Conor O'Higgins]

I've had some interesting experiences using this as an object of concentration practise. Try listening to it and experiencing each individual click with presence of mind. It's fun.

Cheers

Could you describe your practice with this a bit more, and maybe give some details about what happens when you use it?
I didn't try it earnestly, but in order to be accessible for me, the thing would have to start at about one click per second and speed up gradually from there. Also one could add a little more variety by say (randomly) assigning frequencies to the clicks, panning them left and right etc.

It's concentration practise, pure and simple. It's no different from concentrating on your breath or on a mantra - it's just a more 21st century concentration object.

Each individual click is attended to with effort, tranquillity and as much mindfulness as possible. You renew attention, renew attention, renew attention, as rapidly as the clicks arise.

This stops the mind from wandering, simply because there is no time for it to wander. I experience a rock-like state of mind, where I am in firm control of everything that happens in my awareness, and with this comes clarity and peace. The mind is very pliant, in the sense that it does what I want when I want, like an obedient servant, and it is very bright and brilliant, in the sense that things (i.e. the clicks) are experienced clearly and in detail.


For slower speeds, try here: http://www.youtube.com/user/skr33d/videos?view=0 . It's a youtube channel with click tracks from 30bpm up to 300.

I hope that answered your questions.

Your descriptions sound far more like insight practice than concentration, but I agree it's a fun practice and can be a good way to practice khanika samadhi or momentary concentration. If you're doing samatha, you're just sticking with the object and only renewing focus if/when attention moves from it, i.e. if you realize you're no longer observing the entire cycle of the breath.

hmmm, that's an interesting way of improving moment to moment awareness. i think it's a bit like when doing anapanasati instead of counting 1 for each in and out breath, you count 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,... in one in-breath, and so on in one out-breath.

I thought I'd try this out and found that in my android phone, i can download metronome apps that allows one to do this with variable rate. that might be better since beat is infinite and u can jack up the rate as u move on. i'm not sure whether this is a good routine practice, but will certainly try on those bad days,

I wanted to use a metronome app, but couldn't find one that goes that fast. What app are you using?

[quote=Conor O'Higgins]I wanted to use a metronome app, but couldn't find one that goes that fast. What app are you using?

Most metronome apps max at 300 bpm (5hz). Some allow number of clicks per beta, so 2 would mean 10 hz. And you can play around with time signatures to give variety and complexity. I would say that should be plenty fast. Gives you a headache after a while though!

Metronome apps also are useful for noting, noting aloud on the beat, getting into a rhythm and serving as a reminder - obviously at a slower pace (like 20/30bpm). I like mobile metronome on android.

It's called "simple metronome" free from the Android market.