The book in a few sentences

It's a book about meditation with a theme around perfecting your focus and attention. Amishi (the author) backs her claims on meditation with scientific studies and stories. Apart from explaining how our attention works, she also gives practical meditation exercises as well as a 4 week meditation mental training program.

High-Level Thoughts

I quite liked the book because it was grounded with science and offered a lot of practical ways to incorporate meditation into one's life. With so many types and ways of meditation out there, I struggled to understand where to start but this book clearly explains the difference with the meditation types and how to get started. I went through the book's 4 week meditation program and still use the meditation exercises in my life.

Who Should Read It ?

• If you want to know more about meditation but don't know where to start
• If you want to get better at focusing and mastering your attention
• If you're looking for practical meditation exercises.

Who Shouldn't Read It ?

• If you already know a lot about meditating and it's benefits.
• If you already have a meditation practice that you like and don't want to change

How the Book Changed Me

This book gave me a pragmatic approach to meditation and gave me meditation exercises to do regularly in my life. It also took away the anxiety and unknowns of meditation by better explaining what meditation does to the brain.

Summary + Notes

Your attention is made of 3 sub-systems

Attention is actually three subsystems, each of which does something distinct, the flashlight, the floodlight, and the juggler.

Each of these systems cannot run in parallel, they run alone or operate in tandem.

The flashlight

Your flashlight is basically where you are focusing now.

If you are eating, you may not be noticing how the food truly taste but on the environment in front of you.

The example the book gives, is imagine eating a raspberry pie, are you noticing the tartness of the pie, the crumbly crust ? or are you focused on the phone you have propped up in front of you ?

The floodlight

This is the most tiring sub-system, flood lights are turned on in times of high stress and alert.

It's situations where you stop whatever you are doing to focus on the situation at hand.

The idea is that you turn on the floodlights when you are in a state of vigilance.

The juggler

The juggler's job is to maintain your attention on multiple things at once.

This could mean keeping a long term goal in the back of your mind, while focused on the current task at hand.

Or having a conversation with multiple people at once, the juggler's job is to maintain all the topics that have been mentioned, allowing you to respond to multiple topics within the same group conversation.

Stress and your attention

Some levels of stress are required to get your attention. Too little and you get bored. Too much, you get stressed and your attention goes towards self-preservation instead.

The idea is then there is an optimal state of stress that is good for your attention. Much like the goldilock's rule of motivation.

Practice mindfulness to strengthen your attention

Treat meditation like the gym for your brain and your attention.

It's done to keep the 3 sub-systems in peak condition.

Therefore, meditation should be difficult but you should strive to increase the length of your meditations until you reach 12 minutes.

The book recommends, 12 minutes for 5 days a week.

Find your Flashlight Meditation

1. Sit upright anywhere you feel comfortable
2. Close your eyes or have it open slightly
3. Breath naturally, try not to control your breathing
4. Then tune in to your breathing, this could be your lungs expanding and contracting.

• The coolness of the air going in and out of your nose
• your belly moving in and out

1. Keep your attention there.
2. Now, notice when you deviate and then move your attention back to your breath

The real work in this meditation is moving your flashlight back to your breath.

Booster

We can add an extra step to make this even more potent.

Follow the steps before, but when you notice you deviated, add these steps.

• Notice where it goes
• Label it (As in what caused you to deviate ? a thought ? a sensation ?)
• Make it a quick process, just notice it and label it and return to your breath

The idea is to build an understanding of what kind of things take your flashlight away. Maybe you are more sensitive to sounds or lights. This type of meditation can help you find that out.

Body scan meditation

This is about being able to fixate your focus externally

1. Start by sitting or lying down comfortably
2. Then shift your focus to a body part, I like to start lower to upper as the book suggests

• Start with your lower legs -> upper legs -> pelvic area -> core -> lower torso -> upper torso -> upper body -> shoulders -> upper arms -> lower arms and then hands -> neck -> face -> head -> top of head

1. Divide each body part by the number of minutes you dedicated for the meditation.
2. For each area, you just want to notice and label sensations. Like was your toes cold? tingly ? With your breathing areas, feel it expand and contract
3. If you lost your attention along the way, just return it to the area you remembered before wandering off

Dropping Beliefs Instantly

Changing your own opinion very quickly is not a sign of indecisiveness but a sign that you have detached from your own thinking. It can help combat confirmation bias

River of thought Meditation

1. Stand or sit but the book recommends staying in the mountain pose
2. Aim your flashlight on the breath
3. Try to imagine your thoughts and emotions flowing through you and just notice what goes by

• try not to engage or fixate on them

1. Just observe what is flowing through
2. If you are having a hard time, go back to the breath and start again

• You can also imagine your breath as a big boulder in the middle of all that flowing thoughts. Focus on that boulder and when you feel ready, go back to observing your thoughts.

1. This is suppose to feel difficult

The idea here is to let your mind do what it does and let the river of your thought flow through you.

Connection Practice Meditation

1. Sit upright anywhere you feel comfortable
2. Close your eyes or have it open slightly
3. Breath naturally, try not to control your breathing
4. Then tune in to your breathing, this could be your lungs expanding and contracting.
   • The coolness of the air going in and out of your nose
   • your belly moving in and out
5. Keep your attention there.
6. Now, notice when you deviate and then move your attention back to your breath

The real work in this meditation is moving your flashlight back to your breath.

The 4-week Mental Training Program - Core Training for the brain

Week One

• Do "Find Your Flashlight" for 12 Minutes a day, for 5 days a week but try for 7 days
• You are trying to focus on the breath, not controlling it, simply pay attention to it
• Try to add a mindful orientation to any activity that you do
• This is an activity that you do while paying full attention to the activity
• Like mindful teeth brushing, notice and pay attention to each tooth and the sensation of the toothpaste in your mouth

The point here is to train yourself to notice when you are losing focus.

There is no bliss state and if you are new to this, this should feel pretty hard.

Week Two

• Alternate "Find your flashlight " and "Body Scan" for 12 minutes a day, for again 5 days a week but ideally 7.
• The idea here is to train your brain to notice and be able to shift your attention

This week helps you better notice physical sensations like how your body feels when you are stressed or tired. It will help you pair a physical sensation with a feeling.

Week Three

• Alternate between "Find Your Flashlight" and "River of thought" for 12 minutes a day, for 5 days
• This training is to get you to notice how much your mind wanders and to catch it as soon as you can
• It would help you check in with yourself and better notice your own behaviours

Week Four

• Alternate between "Find Your Flashlight" and "Connection Practice " for 12 minutes a day, for 5 days.
• The idea here is that as you build "connections" with people, you become a lot more receptive to things
• You ideally don't hold on to ego and grudges as much

Week Five ++

• Do any combination of them for 12 minutes a day, for 5 days a week.

Final Thoughts

I found this book to be a good short read to better understand meditation and how to practice it practically. It also isn't about spiritual enlightenment which a lot of meditation books tend to be about. It's more about using meditation to train our attention and focus, even if the spiritual and mood benefits come as a by-product.

Notes Disclaimer

Anything written here is extremely opinionated and is subjected to bias.