These days, ADD and ADHD run rampant in the United States. I, myself, have ADD but have recently found a bit of hope in the concept of meditation. Buddha taught that to be one with the universe means to be fully in the moment. That takes a total awareness of one’s surroundings using every sensory perception.
Meditation helps you to focus your attention intensely on just one thing. Most people mistakenly believe that you must completely clear your mind when you meditate. That is not true. Instead, you must keep only one thing of your choosing in sharp focus in your inner eye.
With so many TV ads, shows, movies, noises, and the Internet all over the place, it is easy to lose track of where your attention must be placed. It is no wonder that so many of us have an attention deficit. His Holiness, the Dalai Lama says in his book, ‘The Universe In A Single Atom’ that meditation is a “disciplined mental practice of cultivating familiarity with a given object, whether an external object or an internal experience (pg. 142).” Once I decided to focus on cheddar cheese. By the end of my meditation session, I was able to taste it, smell it, feel the texture of it on my tongue and clearly see it in my mind. In an EEG, I’ve heard that the same parts of your brain light up when you actually see an object and when you remember an object.
Meditation, just like prayer!
I’m not proselytizing Buddhism to the masses. I myself, though Chinese, do not practice Buddhism. Meditation, just like prayer is not an activity that can be claimed by anyone religion. Science is only beginning to recognize the measurable health benefits of prayer. I’m sure there are many more studies that can be done to prove, not only prayer but meditation as valuable tools for a healthy lifestyle.
At the moment, I take Strattera to help me keep focused during the day, but I’ve begun to ramp down on my dosage. Somewhere out there, it is somebody’s job to isolate the part of the human brain that is affected by external stimuli. It is then someone else’s job to create a pill that will target that part of the brain with whatever will allow it to receive messages in the appropriate manner. I believe that I will be able to focus my attention in any direction of my choosing without a chemical straitjacket.
