In this journey of decluttering, one thing that I am noticing is that I am finding it quite difficult to concentrate. Usually, when I work or study, I will play something in the background. Perhaps I’ll switch on the TV, play some music or tune in to the radio. For the longest time, I saw nothing wrong with this. But being on this journey, the essence is to declutter that which occupies my physical and mental space.
In almost every book I read on Zen and Buddhism, the emphasis is on a mindful state of being. Meditation or just sitting zones an individual into the moment that they are in. Being mindful, one could say is being submerged in the activity that you are doing. Hence, monks do many chores because the practice of doing chores engages one with sweeping, mopping and the actual cleaning. But the truth is, not many of us actually perform our chores (or anything tedious) in this manner.
Like working or studying, most of us will listen to the radio, to some music or have the TV in the background while we perform our chores. By doing this, we are not entirely mindful of what we are doing. We are not fully submerged in the activity at hand. The radio, TV, or music keeps our minds in automatic mode while we work, study or do our chores.
The mind consistently seeks stimulation. The mind consistently seeks some form of entertainment to keep it preoccupied. It is easier for the mind to be stimulated by music that changes every 3 mins (maybe 8 mins if you listen to deep house) than it is for the mind to be stimulated by 30 mins of sweeping. By keeping the mind distracted in this fashion, we believe that we are getting in some work done. But are we really? Would you feel comfortable if a doctor is performing a serious operation on you while listening to Drake and 21?
Think of the mind as Google Chrome or as Safari. Each tab that is open is the stimulation the mind receives through the five senses it uses to engage with the world. Let’s say you work in an office. Let’s try to count how many “tabs” will be open in such a scenario:
Sound
1. The soft hum of the aircon.
2. The sporadic chitchat of passing colleagues.
3. The movement of colleagues walking up and down the corridor.
4. Sounds of construction or maintenance work.
5. The sound of the button clicks on your laptop or desktop.
6. Radio (or Youtube, Youtube music if you have them on)
7. The inconsistent ping and ring of your cellphone.
8. Random colleagues coming into your office.
Visual
9. The glare of the laptop screen.
10. The colour scheme in your office. (this does have an effect. Hence prison walls are grey as opposed to creche walls that are colourful).
11. The colour scheme of your own outfit.
12. The various notebooks, and papers in your office.
13. The laptop or desktop itself.
14. Your table, chair and any other pieces of furniture.
15. The shape and colour scheme of accessories and novelty items that you might have in your office.
16. The colour scheme of your colleagues' outfits.
17. The colour scheme of the building at your work.
Smell
18. Even though your mind is used to it, your scent.
19. The scent of your office.
20. The scent of your perfume.
21. The scent of the building.
22. The scent of your lunch.
23. The scent of your colleagues.
24. The scent from the aircon vents.
25. The scent of your furniture.
26. The scent of your coffee or tea.
Taste
27. The taste of your own mouth.
28. The taste of your tea or coffee.
29. The taste of your toothpaste.
30. The taste of your lunch (or your colleague’s lunch if they invite you)
31. The taste of your saliva.
Touch
32. The feel of the laptop keyboard.
33. The feel of your office chair, desk and any other pieces of furniture.
34. The feel of lotion on your fingers.
35. The feel of accumulated dirt from the floating dust.
36. The feel of soap washing your hands.
37. The feel of reapplying fresh lotion.
38. The feel of cool (or hot) air in your office from the air-con.
39. The feel of your clothes (in most cases, your shoes cause your feet move a lot changing the sensations around them.)
Buddhist monks state that there’s a sixth sense called the mind. From the way I understand this sixth sense, it involves that mental and emotional state that you might be in. This may vary on an hourly basis. You might have woken up in a great mood only to be put off by bad traffic. You could have woken up in a horrible mood but seeing your loved ones could turn that around. The mind sense changes consistently and it can be argued that Zen practice aims for its practitioners to have a firmer grip on this sense. But before we lose direction, let’s go back to the open tabs.
On average, we have 39 (40 including the mental and emotional state that we are in) open tabs that are consistently using the brain’s processing power. Mind you I omitted stimulation from platforms such as Twitter, TikTok or Instagram that has a lethal combination that stimulates all our senses except smell and taste. Which we can argue that sometimes food content creators create such amazing posts that we can smell and taste the food through the screen.
It is true, like a computer internet browser, some of these “open tabs” operate in the background. Like the colour scheme of your office, the feel of the air from the aircon, your perfume and such, your mind is used to these stimulating elements. However, it does not bypass the fact that the mind is processing the simulations.
But a key thing to remember about the mind is that it is consistently seeking stimulation. Therefore, with these “background processes” such as your own scent and so forth, the mind quickly gets bored with them and wants more. Hence most of us will feed the mind with more stimulation through playing the radio, playing Youtube or whatever the case.
The key aspect of radio, music and the like is that it is designed to be entertaining. A good radio DJ, with just his introduction, will have more than 10 different sounds played in seconds. The brain, in those seconds, will try its best to process those sounds. The same goes for modern music.
Through FL Studio and digital means of creating music, an artist can easily have various instruments playing in one song. Other artists will even include distorted animal sounds. With all these sound elements, the brain will do its best to process the various sounds. And music has the added effect that can alter the mental and emotional state that you are in, it can alter what the Buddist call your sixth sense.
It is then no surprise that I am finding it hard to concentrate. Simply because of the stimulation that arises from reading a textbook or an article for research, setting a paper or any other administrative task of being a lecturer is boring and tedious. It is because, in this decluttering process that I am in, my brain is finding it difficult to readjust itself to less potent forms of stimulation. My brain is finding it difficult to engage in a single activity without the stimulation of more potent sensations such as radio or music.
There are two techniques that I’ve read that most experts suggest. One is that every 30 mins or so, because the mind will be using a majority of process power on one or a few elements, it will get exhausted and begin to seek distractions (other more potent sitmulations). They say that instead of seeking that stimulation through social media, it will be better to take walk outside the building of your employment. The feel of the sun (and even rain), the whisk of fresh air blowing, the green of nature and the pollen that it gives off, provides the mind with a healthier alternative that would allow you to regain focus. The danger however of this is that the sun might be so good on the skin that the stimulation you feel might be as strong as the one you receive from social media.
The other technique is slightly more difficult and I am yet to master it. It is a meditative technique that when the mind is less engaged in the work you are busy with, the technique implies that you breathe in and breathe out. As you breathe in, say what you to do and as you breathe out, say what you don’t want to do that would be distracting to the core work that you are engaged with. So say for a lecturer stating an exam, it would go along these lines:
“Writing short questions (breathing in). No Kevin Momo (breathing out.)”
The key is to repeat these breaths until the mind finds its calmness and it enables you to regain focus on the work at hand. This, however, is a technique I still need to perfect without the assistance of caffeine.
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