Attention & Focus · “You Become What You Hold”
The Training of the Mind
Take one chosen object, hold the mind upon it, and each time attention strays bring it straight back and note the lapse — training one-pointedness as a measurable, daily-strengthened skill.
Bennett’s Training of the Mind: Sit still. Choose one object — the breath, a simple form, or a word — and hold the mind on it. The instant it wanders, note that it wandered and bring it straight back, calmly. Count the wanderings; watch the number fall and the steady stretches lengthen, day by day. The mind is cultured like a muscle: by regular, patient return.
What it is
This is Allan Bennett’s own concentration discipline, set out in his 1911 essay “The Training of the Mind” (originally “On the Culture of the Mind”), which Aleister Crowley reprinted in The Equinox.
Bennett — by then the Buddhist monk Ananda Metteyya — treated the mind as something that can be cultured like a muscle: untrained, it wanders ceaselessly; trained, it can be held one-pointedly on a single object at will.
His method is austere and practical: choose one object, hold the mind on it, and the instant it strays, note that it has strayed and bring it back. The wanderings are not failures but the very material of the training; their number falls, and the steady stretches lengthen, with daily practice.
Read plainly, this is focused-attention training with a built-in metric — the Buddhist goal of samadhi (one-pointedness) sits on top of an ordinary, well-evidenced attention mechanism.
The Method
Faithful to Bennett’s essay (paraphrase with short attributed phrasing):
- Sit still and settle the body. Bennett, trained in yoga, assumes a steady seated posture and quiet breath first, so the body stops competing for attention.
- Choose one simple object and keep it. Take a single object of attention — Bennett’s tradition favours the breath, a simple visualised form, or a sacred word — and resolve to hold the mind on that and nothing else.
- Hold the mind upon it. Keep attention fixed on the one object, excluding every other thought, image, and sensation as far as you can.
- Note every wandering, then return. The mind will slip away — repeatedly. Each time, register that it has wandered (“noting accurately,” in Bennett’s later phrasing for sammasati, right mindfulness) and bring it back to the object without irritation. This catch-and-return is the exercise.
- Count, and watch the count fall. Treat it as a graded discipline: over days and weeks the interruptions grow fewer and the unbroken stretches grow longer. The improvement is the proof you are culturing the mind.
- Practise daily and lengthen gradually. Bennett insists mind-culture is built by regular, persistent practice, not by occasional heroics. Extend the sitting only as steadiness allows. (Sourcing note: the essay is widely reprinted; the lines above are attributed paraphrase and short quotation — “the culture of the mind,” “noting accurately” — not full reproduction.)
Source & Lineage
Allan Bennett (1872-1923) was an English magician and senior member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the early mentor who taught Aleister Crowley ritual, yoga, and concentration.
He travelled East, studied Hatha Yoga, pranayama and concentration under the yogi Shri Parananda (Ponnambalam Ramanathan) in Ceylon, and was ordained as the Theravada monk Ananda Metteyya, becoming a pioneer transmitter of Buddhist meditation to the West.
“The Training of the Mind” distils his Buddhist mind-culture into a graded concentration discipline; Crowley folded its method into his own A∴A∴ training.
The Traditions' versions
The move — fix on one object, notice the wandering, return — is the universal core of concentration practice; Bennett’s stamp is the sober, measurable, daily-discipline framing of it as “culture of the mind”: - Crowley’s Dharana (Liber E) — Bennett’s pupil’s near-identical drill, with a counted “magical record” of breaks.
- Patanjali’s Dharana — the Raja Yoga original of binding the mind to one place.
- Mahasi-style noting — registering each arising before returning.,
- Annie Besant’s “fixing the mind” — Theosophical concentration drill of the same era.
- Trataka / candle gazing — a single fixed object for one-pointedness.
Common refinements
Fighting the wandering. The lapses are the data, not proof of failure — note calmly and return; irritation just adds a second distraction.
- Skipping the count / feedback. Without tracking the breaks there is no feedback loop; the measurable improvement is the method’s edge over vague “try to focus.”
- Heroic marathon sessions. Bennett’s whole point is regular culture; long forced sittings breed strain and discouragement. Short and daily beats long and rare.
- Changing the object every session. Keep one object long enough to deepen; constant switching prevents the steadiness from building.
- Expecting instant stillness. Early on the mind wanders constantly — that is normal and exactly what the drill is for.