Meditation for Clarity and Focus

Perhaps the best way to start a meditation practice is with techniques that promote clarity and focus. The more we can gather and concentrate the mind, the more clearly and successfully we can navigate our lives. As we develop the ability to sustain our attention on a single object, we feel a greater sense of agency and ease in our experience. The techniques on this page utilize single-pointed attention — focusing on an object in our experience that we repeatedly bring our attention back to.

Mindfulness of Breath

In mindfulness of breath, we simply notice how it feels to breathe, and we aim to keep our attention on our breath. Most people feel their breath most distinctly either at the nostrils or the belly. It is helpful in the beginning to choose one of these areas and stick with it for the duration of your session. You can always try a different point of focus in the future. Breathe normally; there is no need to intentionally manipulate anything. Simply be with your breath — just notice and accept however it unfolds naturally. As you do this, your mind will wander. When this happens, simply bring it back to the breath. Do this as often and as many times as you need to. Your mind will wander a lot, at first. The challenge and value of this practice are in its simplicity.

Mindfulness of breath is arguably the single best practice to start with as a new meditator. Even many advanced meditators continue to use it as their primary technique. Check out this guided meditation from Jon Kabat-Zinn for more detailed instructions:

Mantra Meditation

Another technique suited for strengthening our concentration ability is mantra meditation. The core of mantra meditation is repeating a mantra — a verbal sound, spoken aloud or silently in the mind — over and over again, which quiets the mind. This is a single-pointed focus exercise, similar to mindfulness of breath. The main difference is that you repeat the mantra sound intentionally as opposed to simply observing the natural, automatic experience of breathing. Just speak the mantra quietly in your mind, over and over again. You can think of it like chanting. When your mind wanders, simply bring it back to the mantra and continue repeating. That is the practice. You can try out different speeds and rhythms of chanting. You may even want to experiment with reciting the mantra on each inhale and exhale, which makes the practice a sort of hybrid with mindfulness of breath.

As for choosing a mantra — some people like to repeat a word or phrase that holds meaning for them, such as “consciousness,” “awareness,” “I am calm,” “Everything is okay,” “I am here, now,” etc. However, many find it more helpful to choose a simple verbal sound with no intellectual meaning. The most classic example is “Om”.

Here is a list of mantras you can try out:

• Om
• So-Hum
• Ah
• Ram
• Lam
• Shanti
• Calm
• Let go
• Here / Now (inhale / exhale)
• In / Out (inhale / exhale)

And here is guided mantra meditation you may find useful:

Samadhi — The Foundation of Your Practice

These techniques are intended to develop samadhi, which in Buddhist practice means “concentration”. We don’t want to think of concentration as an effortful striving activity, but rather as a way to gently gather the mind, like drawing a bunch of loose threads together into one unified strand. Samadhi is traditionally considered a key foundational skill for more advanced forms of meditation. The samadhi techniques here will sharpen your mind and help you as you learn new practices.

As you cultivate focus and clarity — or in some cases, if you are struggling to do so with these techniques — you may want to explore meditation practices for relaxation and spirituality. If you find the samadhi techniques impossible to practice, you may be interested in learning how to meditate with ADHD. Additionally, if you find it difficult to sit comfortably during meditation, see the pages here on meditation posture and meditation in motion.