Sharpening focus and awareness: finding your own capacity for stillness and mindfulness

In an era that keeps speeding up, and a society that keeps growing more competitive, more and more people are paying attention to how they keep their minds settled and look after their mental wellbeing, and are looking for ways to feel better in body and mind. Whether it is sitting meditation and meditation, handed down over centuries, or the more recent language of stillness and mindfulness, the aim is the same: to bring your attention back to yourself, notice how the body and your thoughts are shifting, and let yourself settle.

To help people move into flow, meditation often makes use of music or guided relaxation; breathing practices include counting the breath, observing the breath, tortoise breathing and diaphragmatic breathing. Religious traditions have their own ways of quieting the mind — chanting, reciting mantras, reciting sutras, sandalwood incense, shamanic ritual, dedicated halls for practice — along with objects such as crystals, relics, singing bowls, Tibetan Buddhist ritual implements and other energy pieces. Whatever the method, the purpose is to help the mind settle so that you can focus on and stay aware of your own body and feelings.

When practicing these methods, you usually look for a quiet place — lying on a bed, sitting in a chair, or sitting cross-legged — and then use one of the approaches above to hold your focus and awareness. The challenge beginners most often run into is a scattered mind, restlessness, or the urge to get up again almost as soon as they sit down.

Aqive's co-founder Yves Lin came to mindfulness in 2020, and at the start he ran into exactly these problems: a cluttered mind and thoughts that would not stop. With steady practice, things improved. Along the way he encountered the various approaches described above and tried a good number of them, and he wanted to find something that could help others who were looking to settle themselves.

While Yves was working with Prof. Si-Chen Lee, former President of National Taiwan University, on research into sacred symbols, they found that with certain particular arrangements, holding the combination of symbols in the hand left them with a markedly heightened sense of awareness and attention — much like the feeling of deep mindfulness practice.

That unexpected finding led to the prototype of Qi Box, a companion for awareness practice. They shared it with friends who were practicing stillness, meditation and sitting meditation, and the feedback described settling into a steady state sooner, sitting comfortably for longer, feeling more aware of the surroundings, and holding attention on shifting sensations for longer stretches.

If you would like to settle into mindfulness, stillness, meditation or sitting meditation more easily, we warmly recommend the awareness companion [Qi Box] alongside your practice, in the hope that it helps you find your way back to an easier, more comfortable version of yourself.

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