Oakville Zen Meditation
Zen mindfulness: the antidote to A.D.H.D.
/Canadian Here are the latest ADHD stats from the CDC & American Psychological Association.
1) Attention span:
Young: around 5 to 7min. (because, most of the time they are under guided supervision).
Adult: around 3 to 4 min.
Adult dog :45 sec. (adult)
Goldfish: 7 sec.
Over the last 15 years, attention span has dropped by around 30%, especially among adults.
Reasons?: multitasking, distractions, overthinking and search for instant results.
Talking produces around 120 words/min. A 3min. speech has around 360 words.
After 3 min., the attention span of the audience drops by around 30% /min.
Therefore, you will probably talk to yourself if your speech is more than 6min.
2) Hyperactivity:
Means doing many things at the same time or changing activity very quickly w/o significant outcome. Multitasking, a form of ASDHD is a growing cause of anxiety and burnout.
As far Zen is concerned, learning to pay attention in a mindful way is a vital skill to practice in order to achieve serenity.
The word attention, in Zen teaching, has nothing to do with concentration or straining that we are trying to do during our various activities at home or at work.
Attention, in its Zen meaning, means having the mental openness of a young child that is an open but still concentrated mind.
An open mind is paying attention with non-analytic, non-judgmental, non-decisional and without tension. This is mindfulness at its best.
Zen Master Suzuki calls it “Beginner mind” in his book with the same title.
A young child mind is not yet dominated by beliefs, ideas, opinion, expectations, judgment, analysis and decisions.
a Her/his mental openness is like a mirror reflecting things as they are, sort of simple pure concentrated awareness without a wandering mind. It is the opposite to the conceptual, dualistic, and gateway mind of an adult, trapping us in a constant fictional world full of ongoing thoughts.
Practicing mental openness is freeing us from this mental cage that our education, beliefs, and experiences are creating.
How to practice it?
We talk about it zillions of time.
.Stop the schizophrenic space/times between body and mind
Bring your wandering mind to the present moment, where your body is and what it is doing.
Is it boring? Probably yes for most of the time, but just do it.
Your attention becomes 100% and you are not anymore hyperactive nor multitasking.
Thank you
