Focus and the Path to Mastery

 

If we feel that the things we are doing are meaningful and worthwhile, and if we focus our attention fully on the present, we experience a deep sense of fulfillment. Time seems to pass quickly, and our overall sense of happiness increases. Conversely, when we cannot find meaning in our activities and feel bored, or when our attention drifts back and forth between the past and the future without settling on the present, time seems to drag, and feelings of anxiety grow. When we concentrate intensely on something, it feels as if we are pouring all our energy into a single point. This may be what Japanese craftsmen have long meant when they advised their apprentices to "put your soul into it." From the perspective of physics, this intense focus could be seen as converting the internal potential energy latent within us into kinetic energy directed outward — a living example of the law of conservation of mechanical energy. If we continue channeling this transformation steadily over a lifetime in a particular field, we eventually reach the state of "mastering the path." I have heard that those who master the path are rewarded with a view — a state of mind — so beautiful and profound that it can only be understood through personal experience. As for myself, I am still on the journey and have yet to reach that level of mastery.

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