Meditation For Beginners — Step Four: Focus

If you can fixate your attention on something, you can fixate your attention on anything.

Step 4 in the Beginner’s Guide To Meditation series.

(Step 3 / Step 5)

Focus. 

This is a tricky one. 

Now, you might have noticed that at no point in the earlier meditations did I instruct you whether or not to keep your eyes closed or open. That’s because up until now you could do whatever you want. But here, we’re going to be focusing with our eyes open. 

This is really strengthening a muscle that is central to the journey that you can take in meditation. If you can fixate your attention on something, you can fixate your attention on anything. If you can fixate your attention on what’s there, you can fixate your attention on what’s not there.

That might not make any sense, but that’s exactly the idea. 

Look around your room and try to find something that you want to use for this object to focus on. Worst case scenario, a place on the floor will do. A little spot or something about three feet in front of you that you can calmly gaze upon. 

Something that is used pretty commonly is a candle flame. A flame is a very engaging thing to look at. So if there is an item that’s engaging or something that feels good to look at or even just a noticeable mark somewhere out in front of you, use that as the focal point. 

This meditation is a lesson in how to fix your gaze. It’s not as easy as it sounds. You don’t want to furrow your brow. You don’t want to be straining your face while you’re doing this. It’s a soft gaze because just like the way that you’re seated, you want to be comfortable doing this over time. A soft gaze is what enables you to relax into whatever it is you’re focusing your attention on. 

As you do this, all manner of thoughts and feelings and distractions are going to come in and are going to come out. The way to move through that in meditation is to not worry about it. Don’t worry if your eyes get distracted and you dart away. Just go right back. This is training. This is strengthening your muscle of focus. The stakes are low.

You might start to some, honestly, crazy visual experiences as you do this. You might see tunnel vision as the shadows creep in from the peripheral until there’s only you and the object. Play with that. Have fun with it. It’s totally normal. What’s going to happen on the other side of that experience is it will teach you how much of your perception — visually — is selection. 

When you’ve hopefully found something that can be the object of your fixation today, place it in front of you. As you do in preparation for the meditation, regard it very similarly as you regarded sound in the last meditation. This isn’t about judging or assessing or being attached to or looking for any meaning in the object in front of you at all. 

It’s just about the calm, empty feeling of being with the vision of what is the object of your attention.

Let’s dive in.