Approaches to Focus

In light brought on in my readings of a Buddhist sites' definition of "Mindfullness", and further contemplation of my own, very similar, thoughts on methods of bringing focus to my activities, I've realized the supreme advantage of the Buddhist method over my own (my own method was developed over time with much experience, and self acknowledged insight mutually exclusive to any Buddhist influence until today).

In my view of the world, I hold several things key to retaining a focus. All of these key ingredients are different vantage points streamlined to motivate my love and appreciation of myself and my art(or whatever I may be doing at the time). For example (and these are more detailed in my journal blog) I remind myself when I listen to a lecture, read a textbook, or discuss a mistake I've made, that I am not a expert in this field, and I do not wish to be an expert. This simply calms my perfectionistic ideals into submission.

Now, my view on distractions from my focus is a simple one: silence my mind from them. This is much harder than it sounds, and is most times a failure when attempted. Most times when I try to silence, I am left with a nagging feeling, as if I am one step away from accomplishing that solitude (and at the same time I apply motivational techniques to stimulate my enthusiasm) and focus, but am consistently running head first into an invisible, impenetrable, immobile barrier. Note that moving past this barrier is very much influenced by my surroundings. At home, on a leisurely schedule, and encompassed by serenity, I find focusing on things I WILL do later on with a compassion a feasible and almost effortless task, however occasionally my motivation stirs into a depressive pensive mood. This tendency has been noticeably decreasing, as my success rate of focus outside the home, especially in areas where reminiscent, almost nostalgic, and explicitly chronic, thoughts have been an auspice of failure. In those areas, however the usual circumstances of myself, and the normalcy of the environment leave no options to my emotion but to falter, and face, the then, inevitable defeat.

As a superficially similar but practically opposite technique is the one presented by Buddhists. They see that dependence on oneself to produce an illusion, as in my case I produce an illusion of motivation and an illusion of defeat, which in my 1st viewpoint seems inevitable, with conscious effort does not allow for a connection with reality. The centerpiece of their vision is in acceptance of the world around; with acceptance comes compassion. Clear to me now, acceptance frees the need for any further manipulation of ones own thought process, in fact acceptance allows for a self modifying cognition which is always streamlined toward success and understanding of the goodness of life. This vantage will be much less likely to force a autonomous questioning of morals, or produce event driven trigger anxieties, which loose a focus.