Hi

this is my first post. Ive been lurking here for sometime now...just reading your posts. They are very helpful already used your advices...well anyway ive been meditating for 3 weeks now without interruptions. Ive been able to cut down intrusive thoughts by 70%. First i tried breathing meditation - mindfulness..in recent days i kind of shifted to object concentration meditation. I find it much easier than focusing on pure breathing. i start the session with object focusing meditation and then continue with breath observing meditation. I meditate 3-4 times per day for half an hour.
my goal is to fortify my concentration and cognitive abilities. I have a very poor concentration that hinders many what could be good things in my life.
i would appreciate any advice, thought or direction you can give me. the thing is im not really sure if my technique can bring me where i would like to go and stay. should i try something else?
i find it much easier to look at the candle flame than observing my breathing. With breathing technique i just can get absorbed.
when looking at candle flame..should i just be concentrating on the flame, having no thoughts at all or should i be observing something else?

thank you

Could you explain this a bit more? What is your goal specifically? Could you give an example of what you would like to occur?

I have found that there is a difference between getting concentrated during a meditation practice and every day mundane concentration. Any practice with training the mind can have benefits but if you go into some detail the people here may have more specific advise to help you accomplish your goals.
Good luck,
~D

Thank you for replaying.

the things that i would like to gain with meditation are better concentration, better working memory, better focus, mostly elevated cognitive sharpness basically.

This is a very interesting question to me.

There are various kinds of concentration, not all of them make you more capable of functioning in the world, and some kinds will do the precise opposite.

I would be interested in knowing more about this variation, and on how to focus on pragmatical, every-day useful concentration, as opposed to just trippy absorption in the cloud realms or whatever (which sounds like a fun hobby, but doesn't seem very beneficial to me, at least not a-priori).

My orange juice says concentrated on it but it is a different type than what I would like for my brain. I take vitamins, nootropics and exercise to enhance my mental functioning...meditation can also help but I would recommend reading the book MCTB and then see if you want to get where it is leading....
I hope someone can chime in if they have found a technique to do what you want
Good luck,
~D

I am with dreamwalker's line. If those are your stated goals, I think you are going to get better results if you focus your results on high quality sleep, a good diet (such as paleo), lots of exercise, and drugs (caffiene and nicotine are pretty good, modafinil a bit more hardcore). Meditation may help, but I reckon these things will have a bigger impact.

Plenty of scientific articles around that demonstrate cognitive abilities increase with meditation. First one from google schoolary articles...

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10608-007-9119-0

"Results indicated that those completing the mindfulness training demonstrated significant improvements in self-reported mindfulness, depressive symptoms, rumination, and performance measures of working memory and sustained attention, relative to a comparison group who did not undergo any meditation training"

I wouldn't know what exact type of meditation to suggest though. From above it's clear they did mindfulness meditation.

Hi Jane,

I can relate to your post - I used to get frustrated with my mind wandering during lectures or not being able to study. Well... let's just say you're on the right track with this meditation business!

Concentration and insight meditation can both pay off hugely in the long term - you're probably going to have to put up with a lot of disappointing sits, even a few years of them, before you start entering jhana, but once you do, you can be sure of a substantial increase in concentration/mental sharpness in daily life - once you keep practicing daily, that is. Then if you applied that lucidity to vipassana and started getting fruitions and seeing things in an increasingly non-dualistic way, you could be sure of further improvements in all-round mental functioning. Having done this, I've personally found, for example, a big drop-off in the mental chatter that can plague some people, not to mention numerous other benefits to life quality that aren't strictly related to an increase in cognitive horsepower. Think of how nice it would be if "I have very poor concentration" wasn't a problem that "you" had to own - it's just a fact of life, as it is right now.

From what I've read on this site, using a candle flame as object is one of the easiest and quickest ways of developing mental stillness and absorption, so that's probably a good choice. The main thing is just to persevere with it - 90 minutes a day sounds very promising if you could keep that up.

Also, I've found multivitamin tablets (with cod liver oil) to be indispensable (unless you put a lot of effort into eating right). And as Sawfoot mentioned, there are plenty of short-term measures that you should obviously take if you haven't already, like getting regular exercise and a good night's sleep.

So I think the whole package of meditation - insite and concentration are great. I think they definitely do what you want to do....but here is the big BUT....is this enough of a reason to cross the A&P and cycle possibly for the rest of your life? Are these reasons enough to start the climb to the top of the mountain.....I can't not keep climbing and think it's great but there has been many many not so great moments. Make sure this is a path you want to start on and be clear about your reasons for doing so....
I recommend it highly but not for the reasons you are looking for.

Of course I had no idea what I was doing when I took the Red Pill

Best of luck to you
~D

In What is Enlightenment Andrew Cohen says:

"... The most challenging matter for the seeker of enlightenment is learning what it means to be nobody. Many think they want to be enlightened but actually without realizing it they only aspire to be better people. Better means powerful, wise, compassionate, fearless.

"To be enlightened means that the very centre falls away and we find ourselves standing nowhere in the middle of everything with nothing to hold on to -- including power, wisdom, compassion and courage.

http://www.nor.com.au/community/backup/spiritualemergence/page7.html

(no fan of Andrew Cohen but liked this quote)