Meditation starts with concentration: learning how to focus the mind allows us to pull our perception back from the thoughts, senses, and emotions that solidify our limited idea of ourselves.  There are many ways to start with concentration, from breathing techniques to gazing techniques, to mantras,  to a focus on the body’s internal energy centers, and we’ll cover as many as we can with you in subsequent sections. They all involve a single point of focus: by having one object as a point of focus, we gain the ability to see beyond the usual clutter in our minds. 

We often compare developing concentration to developing a muscle. When you first start to concentrate and focus in meditation, it does not come easily for most of us: our concentration “muscle” has atrophied from lack of use. We gradually and steadily build it back up until we are more easily available to grab hold of our attention and redirect it to higher states of awareness.  Using our concentration to take us into higher states of awareness is the fundamental technique and technology of meditation.  In higher states of perception, we are able to experience a deepers side of our being well beyond our limited ideas of who we are. 

Once our concentration gets stronger our meditation experience becomes much more powerful, and we feel clearer, happier, and freer.