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by Carol E. McMahon, Ph.D.

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"What Is Straight Line Meditation?"

A straight line is the shortest distance between two points. In meditation, a straight line is the shortest distance between you and your goal. Learn here meditation minus the wandering: the straight line feedback method.

"The Sure Way To Happiness: Solve A Problem You Don't Know You Have"

Low awareness is a little known but universal problem. Learn how it keeps us from happiness, and how the problem can be solved.

"Is There One Best Way To Meditate?"

Hundreds of methods exist. One has strategic advantage. A feedback method guarantees attention - the key to success. Here’s how it works.

"How To Stop Aging: The Surprising Remedy"

Learn here how our deep seated concept of age causes unnecessary aging. See how to break the concept’s spell and get free of aging with awareness. Cover story: InclusionMagazine.

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What Is Straight Line Meditation?

by Carol E. McMahon, Ph.D., HTML Ready: ArticleBrain

As anyone who meditates will tell you, mind’s wandering gets in the way. You sit down to attend (to a mantra, a candle flame, the breath for instance). Then instead of attending you drift and dream, going in circles, whiling away time. If you could hold on to attention however, you’d go straight to your goal.

This article shows how to stop the wandering with an easy to use straight line feedback method. First, here’s how feedback stops the wandering.

How Feedback Prevents Wandering

Meditation demands attention, but even with our best efforts, attention is easily lost. Why? It is because we lose attention without knowing we are losing it. We set out to attend, but attention slips away unseen. We find out only later when we wake from a daydream.

The psychology of learning holds a solution. It’s called feedback.

Why Meditation Needs Feedback

Meditation is like shooting darts blindfolded. If you can’t see what you are doing, you can’t correct your aim. You need to know when you’re on target. Practice makes perfect only with feedback.

Practice Makes Perfect Only With Feedback!

Feedback is necessary for learning any skill, including attention. Skill learning can’t occur without it. That’s why you can meditate with no increase in practice skill. (You can even get worse over time.)

Traditional meditation methods offer no feedback – no way to monitor attention. Surprisingly however, the feedback meditation needs is easy to access. Indeed visual feedback has been right before our eyes all along, unrecognized. Here’s where you’ll find it.

Where To Find Feedback? Just Open Your Eyes

Throughout its long history, meditation has been associated with light. Light sensations are often noted (“illumination;” “white light” - the light of enlightenment). We never knew the cause of this light however. We did not know it was feedback: attention feedback to be precise – the visible proof of attention effective meditation demands.

What causes the light? In eyes-open meditation (the open gaze of Zen, for instance), light sensations are produced when focused attention holds the eyes still. Good attention creates a fixed retinal image (an image held in the same place on the retina). This fixed image uses up photo pigment (like exposing photographic film). Retinal fatigue occurs and with it visual distortion in the form of light.

The light means you’re on target; it confirms attention. Light gives you both positive and negative feedback. When your mind wanders, your eyes wander and the light disappears. This negative feedback signals you to get back on target. Using light in this way you can see what you are doing. Then (as in darts), practice skill improves automatically. Here’s the how-to.

The Feedback Method How-To

Producing feedback is as easy as gazing at a spot on the floor. A two inch round of paper with a pea sized bull’s eye will serve as a focus point. Focusing Discs specially designed to facilitate feedback are also available. (http://www.StraightLineMeditation.com/FocusingDiscs.aspx)

Focus attention on the bull’s eye and feedback (visual distortion) comes within seconds. When it does, simply attend to the light (or other distortion your fixed gaze produces). Attend to the light and you anchor attention. Then you can hold attention the way you’d grab a rope for a tow. You go in a straight line to advanced meditation’s skill and benefits.

“Seeing The Light:” The Straight Line Advantage

Even Gurus will admit to wandering when they’d hoped for attention. Meditation’s potential is rarely fulfilled. With light as feedback however, you literally attend to your attention. You can now mind your mind. Instead of wandering, you can harness concentration’s full power.

This method’s advantage is its direct route from beginner to advanced practice. You can sustain attention, and attention leads straight to awareness. Awareness grows, and increasingly your eyes open to beauty; your senses open to pleasure; your mind to truth and your heart to love. Enlightenment itself is nothing apart from profound awareness attention creates. Hold on to attention with feedback; see the light and your goal is straight ahead. You can’t miss it.

The Sure Way To Happiness: Solve A Problem You Don't Know You Have

by Carol E. McMahon, Ph.D. PositiveArticles

How aware are you? Try this.

Look at the face of a clock. The minute and hour hands are moving. Odds are you can't see them move. Few people can. Our eyes are not to blame here. Low awareness is. It takes little awareness to see the fast movement of the second hand. Seeing the slower hands move takes deeper awareness, and this we lack.

If full awareness is one hundred percent, we have as little as five percent on average. Low awareness is a little known but universal problem. Because of low awareness our eyes are not open to beauty. Our senses aren't open to pleasure. Our minds aren't open to truth, and our hearts aren't open to love. This problem we scarcely know we have, keeps us from happiness.

Traditional meditation methods aim to increase awareness. They fall short, however, due to a shared flaw: mental drifting and dreaming that is impossible to control. My training as a research psychologist allowed me to solve this problem. I found that meditation methods are missing something -- something that stills the wandering and assures success. Let me explain "feedback."

Meditation has an "active ingredient." It is attention. Attention makes meditation work, but attention is hard to hold on to. It slips away unseen. Meditation lacks a way to monitor attention -- a way to see what you are doing. In a word, meditation lacks "feedback." Knowing what was needed, I developed a Feedback Method.

In the Feedback Method, attention is focused on the bull's eye of a disc. This holds the eyes still, creating slight distortions, usually halos of light. As long as you hold attention you see the light. When the mind wanders however, the eyes wander and the light disappears. Light is feedback. It lets you attend to your attention; mind your mind. It lets you hold on to attention the way you would grab a rope for a tow. And where does attention take you? Straight to awareness.

Meditation's grand prize is a breakthrough to full awareness -- the highest enlightenment, where happiness comes without seeking happiness. Simply “see the light" and you'll solve the problem you don’t know you have. Awareness is all you need.

Is There One Best Way To Meditate?

by Carol E. McMahon, Ph.D.

There are countless ways to meditate, more than two hundred in India alone. Among these, one is based on science, not tradition. It uses feedback – visual proof of attention to assure success. Here’s what you need to know.

Attention: The Key To Success

At first glance we see differences. There’s sitting and walking meditation, vocal and silent, eyes open, eyes closed. The methods vary, yet all work the same way: attention brings success.

All forms of meditation focus attention (on mantras, movements, breaths, etc.). Only one, the feedback method, anchors attention making success a sure thing. Here’s how it works.

How Feedback Creates A Sure Thing

First, what is feedback? Feedback is information – knowledge of results. Psychological research has proven it necessary for learning.

To improve at any skill you need to see what you are doing. Here traditional methods fail. Meditation’s skill is attention, and with traditional methods we simply can’t see what we are doing. We set out to attend (to our breath, a mantra, etc.), but soon we’re lost in a daydream.

The problem is: we lose attention without knowing we’re losing it. It slips away unseen. Standard methods offer no way to monitor attention. Like throwing darts blindfolded, if you can’t see your target you can’t improve your aim. Lack of feedback keeps us from meditation’s great rewards. The new method holds the solution.

See The Light: A Better Way To Meditate

Meditation needs feedback: visible proof of attention. The good news is: it’s surprisingly easy to find. Sensations of light have been noted in meditation since the ancient practice began. This light is feedback – proof of attention.

To see light, you need only focus attention visually. Distortion (usually light) soon appears. The distortion is caused by attention itself when attention holds the eyes still. A fixed image uses up photo pigment, causing sensations of light. These are feedback signals. They mean you’re on target. Here’s the how to.

How To Anchor Attention With Feedback

Start with a target for attention. A two inch round of paper with a pea sized bull’s eye will do, but feedback comes faster with specially designed Focusing Discs, freely available at the Straight Line Meditation site. Focusing Discs use colors to produce visual “intensity” effects - distortions that put on quite a show.

Focus with a gentle gaze on the bull’s eye. Feedback will appear. When it does, shift attention to the light. Attend to feedback and you’ll attend to attention itself. Hold on to feedback and you anchor attention. This creates straight line meditation – a direct route to your goal. Now consider the advantages of feedback.

Advantages Of Feedback

Compare the new to traditional methods. The advantages are obvious.

* No Nebulous Instructions

Traditional meditation instruction is nebulous. (It’s even said there’s no right or wrong way to do it.) Feedback method instruction is explicit. The right way is clear. No guesswork is involved.

* No Wasted Practice Time

Unavoidable waste of practice time (time spent wandering) goes with traditional methods. You might daydream throughout a session. With feedback however, you can mind your mind. You can make every minute of practice pay off.

* Easy To Hold Attention

Holding attention without feedback is all but impossible since you can’t see what you’re doing. With the new method, visual signals guide you continuously.

* Cover Ground Faster

Guided by feedback you go straight to your goal. Eliminate wandering and you cover ground fast.

* Fast Practice Skill Development

Practice skill builds automatically with the feedback necessary for learning. Just doing it develops skill.

* Energized Relaxation

Feedback keeps you focused and on your toes. Sharp, clear and undivided attention leaves you relaxed and energized, not collapsed as often follows practice with traditional methods.

* Higher Goals In Reach

With the feedback method, rest and relaxation are just the beginning. You can aim higher, fulfilling more of meditation’s promise.

* Guaranteed Success

Feedback is proof of attention. You’re guaranteed meditation’s active ingredient and key to success. Feedback makes this the one best way to meditate.

The One Best Way To Meditate

Spiritual traditions offer stores of wisdom in prolific writings. Masters in these traditions often serve as living examples of enlightenment. When it comes to practice technique, however, consistent success demands feedback. If you have a traditional practice, use feedback periodically to confirm attention. Check to see if you’re on target.

Beginner or advanced, success demands attention. Among hundreds of methods, only one guarantees it. Use feedback to see the light in more ways than one.