Staying on the road is one of the most difficult things of the inner journey. There are always tempting detours along the way, or we stop and get involved in some interesting local activity we encounter. During the practice of any technique, it is necessary to keep the mind awake, attentive and focused.

The body is supposed to be deeply relaxed, and the mind is alert and awake, but without tension. There must be a kind of attentive tension, an awakened concentration. If you are half asleep during practice, find a way to be more alert. I do not suggest anything as radical as the custom in many Zen monasteries of a monitor hitting those who meditate on the shoulder with a stick so that they remain alert, but a clear and strong point of focus must be maintained.

If meditation is about listening, listen with all your being, if it is about seeing, look with all your being, body, mind and emotions. Each part of the meditator must be aware of the reference point of the meditation. Become one with what you see, hear or have in mind, or with the breath so that everything else disappears. There is nothing to prove. There is only one thing to do gently, getting closer and closer to a point of concentration.

The purpose of the exercises is to bring the mind to a single focus, and that is impossible if it is sleepy and only half there. People sometimes have the idea that relaxed necessarily means half asleep. Think of a relaxed cat in the window frame, observing the world. He is relaxed, but completely alert. When a dog appears he has a fulminant reaction. In practice it is about experiencing a physical relaxation combined with mental attention, so that, like the cat, the intruders in the mind are instantly warned.

When you find that the mind is gone, which will inevitably happen many times, gently return to exercise. Gently, it is the key word, do not fall into frustration or anger with yourself. They are non-productive emotions and just another form of distraction. Just take them away again, and continue. Be aware, when you do, that each distracted party comes back and joins in meditation, until it is fully involved. It is like the string of an instrument well tuned, calm, tight but without tension, harmonic, waiting in silence for the note to sound.