In practicing open awareness, I've found it helpful to think of existence -- the entire play of sounds and thoughts and bodies and trees -- as the foreground of life, and awareness as the background.

Anyone can learn how to focus -- but only if we decide what is important to us and what we want to commit to accomplishing. The only wrong choice is no choice.

In an age where multitasking hasn't just become second nature, but our only nature, it's important to take a step back and think about the effects these choices are having on our lives.

Finding ways to practice becoming aware of our presumptions and prejudices, even the very small ones, can put us on the road to rediscovering the vitality, the "juice" of life.

Concentration means allowing everything into our awareness, without focusing too narrowly or strenuously, and without being distracted by our judgments, our opinions, or the challenges that life continuously offers.

Today's teens and college students are certainly using their skimming cells and connections... But what's the lose-it part of that equation for this technology-tethered generation?

Here are three techniques to relaxed concentration that, through experience, can be done inside a minute.

Want to connect with people? Want to really understand where people are at and what's going on? Let some silence happen and make a practice of deep listening.

Instead of thoughtlessly accepting a situation, I ask myself, "What's the problem? What's the problem?" and often by forcing myself to understand the exact nature of the problem, I identify a solution.

He doesn't have a shorter attention span; women are just biologically wired to pay attention to different things than men are, says Kathleen Nadeau, P...

Women multitask better than men. Men focus better than women. This affects how we process and communicate our ideas and plans.

Turns out that people aren't very good at thinking about two things at once. One study showed that when people were interrupted to respond to email or IM, it took fifteen minutes to resume a serious mental task.

Whatever your religious belief/non belief, practice or stance we all try to achieve a moment of silence or peaceful meditation at one time or another....

Only in the movies would you end up with Meg Ryan if you truly are Sleepless in Seattle. Never mind that you are Tom Hanks. In real life, Tom never gets to make out with Meg because he is sleep deprived.

Multitasking seems to have wormed its way into our brain matter and I'm not sure that's a good thing, but it's tough to turn back now....

When we are watching something with our eyes open, even if our eyes do not blink, our attention does. Either way, eye-blinks and "attentional blinks" mean that there is some period of time when we are missing seeing something.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite candies was Pez. The bottom half of the dispenser was designed in the shape of a cigarette lighter, and the top w...