The eyes are the second most complex organ in the body after the brain.
They have 200 million working parts and if it was a digital camera it would have 576 megapixels.
The eye is constantly moving even when staring there is a constant unnoticeable twitching of the eye muscles.
The eye moves more often than your heart beats.
This constant moving provides the brain with information about the world around us but because the brain is only really interested in things that change,
Things that it might need to respond or react to,
It tunes out a lot of the constants.
This is called adaptation.
It is a fundamental brain process to ensure we are not overloaded with information.
Today we are going to practice a focused attention meditation.
That is a meditation with eyes open focused on one thing.
There are many benefits to this such as an increase in activity in the anterior cingulate cortex where self-regulation and error detection occurs,
An increase in problem solving as well as an increase in the heart rate variability which is a benefit to your health and resilience.
So you can choose what you wish to focus on.
This could be a point on the wall in front of you,
It could be an object of your choosing,
It could be a picture of something online.
You choose but whatever it is choose something that is unmoving.
Place the object in front of you so you are not having to look up or down or strain to see it.
And now place your attention fully on the object.
Allow the gaze to soften.
The focus may become blurred,
That's fine.
If you notice that your focus is becoming distracted just gently bring it back to focusing on that one thing.
The attention on the object is not just about the sight,
It's about the mind also.
So see if you can fix the mind's attention observing this one thing.
There is nowhere else to go right now and nothing else to do.
Just keep gazing at this one thing.
By doing this the mind becomes anchored.
It becomes fixed on its job of paying attention to this one thing.
Eventually the brain will adapt and will tune out this information where the mind can then rest.
You might want to use the name of the object as a kind of mantra,
Repeating the name of the object if the mind and focus wanders.
Rest now in this focus attention meditation for the next few moments.
Okay.
.
.
.
.
