Counting

One ancient driver of spiritual practice involves counting. Repetitions of prayers and other practices may be accompanied by counting either mentally or with a string of beads. Such counting practices exist in Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism.

Some attention exercises consist solely of mental counting, such as interleaving two counts. A relatively easy example uses one count beginning at 0 and counting up to 100, and another count beginning at 100 and counting down to 0, like this:  0, 100, 1, 99, 2, 98, etc. A more demanding version has one count beginning at 1 and increasing by 3 on each count, and the second beginning at 100 and decreasing by four on each count: 1, 100, 4, 96, 7, 92, 10, 88, … These mental exercises keep us focused in the present; otherwise we lose the count. Simple counting can support meditation by, for example, enumerating the breaths in the practice of breath awareness. As long as we do not allow the count to become automatic, all these counting methods help us extend our attention through time. The longer we are present, the deeper our presence can be.

A highly effective use of counting in daily practice consists of resolving to repeat an inner exercise a certain minimum number of times during the day. For example, take the exercise of sensing each of our four limbs in turn: cycling through the right arm, right leg, left leg, and left arm. We set ourselves to repeat this exercise a particular number of times during the day – say ten. Whenever we remember the exercise, we turn to it, increment our count, and then leave it until the next time we remember. Instead of sensing we could work on presence, a heartfelt prayer, or some other practice. To simplify, we choose one practice to count for the day and we set the daily number each morning. The determination to turn to inner work at least our chosen number of times provides an extra impetus to our efforts for that day and helps us enter our practice more often than we might otherwise. Over time, we can experiment with increasing the daily number.

If it should happen that we reach the end of the day without having made our self-allotted count, we carry through on our commitment by not going to sleep until we finish. This might, for example, require a period of focused inner work where we allow ourselves one count per minute. Sticking to our commitment for the day keeps the whole process alive. Otherwise the practice of counting our inner work quickly loses its potency.

Such definite repetition of any spiritual exercise works to gradually stretch our attention, open our perceptions, collect our energies, strengthen our will, and dispose us toward the path. Starting anew at a count of zero each morning enlivens our practice by permitting us a fresh start every day, while keeping us humble by the mere fact of beginning again. The count itself ties together our day of inner work, making the separate repetitions into a single act of will. Most importantly, counting concretizes our efforts, moving our inner work from the potential to the actual.

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