Laser Focus for Work

The teacher's idea is that the more relaxed your body is, the more attention you have available, since distraction often shows up when the body is uncomfortable. You breathe only through your nose, then check in with your abdominal muscles, your diaphragm and your ribs, asking each to release a little more tension with every breath.

The third eye is the space in the centre of your brow. You breathe into it, imagining light, energy or air moving in and out, until you notice a sensation there. It gives your attention one steady place to rest before the light exercise begins.

You look at the darkness behind your eyelids and treat it as a blank canvas or void, while staying relaxed. Then you imagine a beam from your third eye making a spot of light in the middle of it. That spot is described as the light of your attention, lighting up whatever you pay attention to.

You practise both extremes. First the light grows until all you see is bright white. Then it condenses back to a spot and tighter still, into a laser beam that can pierce through confusion. Finally it opens up again while keeping its strength, so you feel you can adjust both the strength and breadth of your attention.

Before you finish, you think about what you are about to work on and ask how you want it to feel and where you want your attention placed. It turns the practice into an intention for the work itself. Then you take one big breath in through your nose, out through your mouth, and open your eyes to get to work.

The meditation says so at the start: sitting where you work lets you carry the focus straight into your next task. There is no gap between the practice and the work, so the sharpened attention goes directly to what you need to do.