There appear to be good reasons to support this reluctance. Focusing attention is a patience demanding task since our brain seems to be better designed for turbulence and mental noises than for stillness and silence. A 2007 study by Michael Kane at the University of North Carolina suggests that, on average, during thirty percent of our alert schedule we are thinking about things different from what we are doing. And Jonathan Schooler of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver concluded in another 2007 investigation that even while reading, a concentration demanding activity, we digress between fifteen and twenty of the time.
Since we wander for such a high fraction of our awake day, scientists have decided to put their hands on the subject and, as in all research projects of cognitive sciences, computer imaging technology has become their main ally. Schooler and other group of researchers, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), have found that two specific brain regions belonging to different neuronal networks become active during mind wandering. The first one, located mainly on the frontal cortex, is known as the executive control system; the second one, more dispersed throughout the brain, is known as the default network. Activation of these networks is not steady or continuous and depends much on the wandering “magnitude”.
By associating the timed images to the mind states of participants as reported during the scanning procedure, the research team also established two levels in the intensity of distractions. In the first one the participants are partially conscious that they are actually wandering and hold the thread of the original task; in this case the predominant neuronal activity occurs in the executive control system network. In the second level, the participants are not even aware that they are distracted—Schooler refers to this second level as “zoning out”—and the neuronal activity is greater in the default network.
The distraction levels are easily recognized when practicing a common routine of Zen meditation. During this exercise, as an example, the meditator silently counts breathing cycles, from one to ten and repeatedly back to one. The counting is just a mental device to focus attention and keep distractions away; now and then the person looses track of the count. When meditators become aware of their mistake at the very moment it happens, they are still in the first distraction level. If, on the contrary, the miscounting lasts longer (for example, it reaches up to fourteen) the meditators, already in the second level, are zoning out.
“A lot of human daily life is autopilot,” Michael Kane says and, consequently, a certain degree of distraction is not only acceptable but it may even be necessary. Some psychologists maintain that the creativity flashes—the eureka moments—arise come from the default network when we are zoning out. However, if what permanently enter our head are resentments, obsessions, panics, hatred or other negative thoughts, it means we are in the territory of harmful disorders. It is here where meditation can be of much help; the Buddha said that meditation is the path toward a peaceful, undefiled state of mind.
Being so simple and useful, why do not more people meditate? Common answers, as it could be expected, have little to do with the brain physiology we just described. Accounts include “I cannot concentrate”, “I have too many problems in my head”, “my mind is elsewhere”, “I cannot remain still for so long” and so on. These excuses, well devised to “rationally” avoid the practice, are truly the best reasons why people should sit down, with their eyes closed in a passive attitude, and simply observe the flow of their breathing and of all the sensations that run through their body. Little by little, with the continuous and disciplined practice of this simple routine, their mind will appease and their unruly, disturbing thoughts will eventually settle down.
Gustavo Estrada
Author of HACIA EL BUDA DESDE EL OCCIDENTE
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