(Julia H: if you feel I'm hijacking your thread, please forgive me)
I too have enquired about this last year, and David kindly responded the same way. Yet that very question about concentration still bothers me.
I understand very well the notion of letting thoughts flow freely as a means of releasing stress, but I fail to see which stress is being released by my thinking
- what shall I have for dinner tonight?
- why is the new Portishead album mixed with so little bass?
- my cats are so cool
- this is the sequence of movements for a half axel in freestyle kite-flying
- why are we here?
- were those breasts real?
- etc.
These the are kinds of things that go through my mind during waking hours -except for when I'm concentrating on work or some other topic, or reading or watching a movie. When meditating, if I don't make an effort to go back to "saying" the syllable, these utterly trivial thoughts will simply take over my complete 15 minutes every time. The only difference during meditation will then be that I'm sitting with my eye closed...
I should mention I definitely am an intellectual, but I don't think I have an overactive mind.