Stages of Attention Training
“I suggest that if you were able to focus your attention at will, you could actually choose the universe you appear to inhabit.” – Alan Wallace, PhD
How strong are your attention muscles?
Here’s one way to find out:
First, stare at an ordinary object, like your coffee mug.
Next, close your eyes. Try holding the object’s mental image in your mind for as long as possible.
You can also count your breaths and see how high you get before losing focus.
Most people find that after a minute, or even just a few seconds, their attention wanders off into thoughts. This is your default attention span, probably wired for distraction. Luckily, it doesn’t have to stay that way.
The 4 Stages of Attention
Every major meditation system trains attention. Some have really detailed maps, like Asanga’s elephant path for Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.
Here’s a general map for determining your progress through the stages of attention in meditation.
Stage 1: Directed Attention—You'll spend most of this first stage under a waterfall of endless thoughts. But you slowly learn to focus on a chosen object, like the breath. You've mastered the first stage when you can stay with your object for about 50% of the session.
Stage 2: Resurgent Attention—You're now able to recover from distractions quickly. So instead of being lost in thought for a few minutes, your monitoring skill might kick in after just a few seconds. You've mastered the second stage when you can stay with your object for about 80% of the session.
Stage 3: Continuous Attention—Here, you never completely forget the object of meditation, even though distracting thoughts might play out in the background. You've mastered this stage when you're with the breath 100% of the session, but it's still not stable and requires constant effort.
Stage 4: Single-Pointed Attention—At this stage, you become completely absorbed in the object of meditation. Nothing else enters your attention lens. Your attention becomes effortless, and it might feel like you merge with the object of attention since it's all that exists in your awareness (often referred to as samadhi).
A word of caution: this map can cause people to judge themselves and get frustrated, thinking you ought to be at a certain stage. The map is only there to help you understand your mind and motivate your practice.
“Steady and undissipated attention to one object is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry, bustle, and agitation, are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind.” – Lord Chesterfield
Stage 4 can take hours of consistent daily training or even a silent retreat, but you can still train for these impressive levels of concentration in a more bite-sized practice. After all, the quality of your practice is more important than its length.
And even having mastered Stage 1, able to consciously focus your attention, puts you in the top 1% of strongest attention muscles in the world.
Hopefully, these stages of attention serve as useful signposts in your mental fitness development.
P.S. — If you’re serious about starting or deepening your meditation practice, check out the FitMind meditation app.