Meditations: Fire Focus
A candle flame, a quiet space, and some practice toward expanding your capacity for single-focused focus
Humans are the only creature on this Earth to have innovated by way of fire.
Control of fire in the world empowered humans to evolve through stimulating warmth, lighting dark nights, building advanced hunting tools and cooking various foods. Today, it seems like a bygone component in our technology-driven lives. Yet, there still remain parts of the world who remain reliant on fire for everyday survival, and prior to the explosion of innovation in the recent centuries, control of fire was just as integral to all of mankind.
Here, we present the idea that fire, of a different sort, can produce the same exponential benefits, in this case for our well being, as fire on a plank of wood or candle wick has been for millennia in the evolution of mankind. Here, we find a way to use the candle for a meditative practice to foster clarity and focus in our minds.
With this meditation, we turn inward, and light up the fire within us. Once it is stable and under our volition, we then use it to burn away the impurities and noise going on inside of us, creating the space for creative focus on an object of our choice.
What is the essence of focus? It is to give all of our attention to one aspect of reality, big or small, in the present moment.
And what hinders our focus? In the outside world, all the noise around us. In the inside world, all the noise within us.
This meditation will guide us to melt away that noise within us.
It can be done in any quiet, dimly lit space, and all we need is a candle (we prefer staying away from paraffin-based candles, and use a naturally-sourced beeswax candle wherever possible). In fact, for those looking for a unique way to re-focus throughout the day at work, this practice can be incredibly rejuvenating.
Find yourself sitting in a comfortable posture with upright back and bring a candle to burn in front of you
Close your eyes, and perform a cleansing breathing practice. Then, bring attention to your body and ease into opening your eyes again.
Focus on the candle flame. Begin to hold the attention a center point in the white space, where movement is least volatile. Stay here for 2-3 minutes, coming back to the center point if your mind or eyes wander elsewhere.
Once the candle flame picture is clearly embedded in the mind, close the eyes, and bring up the visual of the flame burning. Stay here once more for 2-3 minutes. If you would like to explore this further, merge yourself into the flame itself
Now move the visual of the flame burning into your body, and down into the naval region. Do so gently and gradually, seeing the flame as it moves through your body. Hold it here, establish it stably for another 2-3 minutes.
The will be clearing up now. With the attention remaining on the flame at the naval region, begin to see aspects in your mind that are burdening you, that are top of mind, or that you simply want to let go of for the time being. As you see them, let them all into the fire. See them burn away to ash. Keep this process going with interludes of simply experiencing the flame and the emerging space.
Allow the flame within you to gently extinguish, and settle into the place of space. Be here. Hold this space.
At the end of the meditation, move the object of your intention into the front of your awareness, spending 30-60seconds on it, and proceed to open your eyes.