“Don’t be a board-carrying fellow.” This expression, sometimes used in Zen, refers to a carpenter carrying a long, wide wooden board on his shoulder, blocking his view in one direction. It is an admonition about seeing the world and ourselves as ordinary and mundane without also considering the sacred, mysterious, and unfathomable aspect of our hearts, minds, and surroundings.

I had a teacher in business school who was fierce, intimidating, and a sweetheart. Ian McMillan was a wiry South African with a quick wit and a quick temper. He taught a class entitled “Entrepreneurship.” Our weekly assignment was to find and describe a business opportunity that came from our own experience. We had to spot a need that could be met by forming a business. In one page we were to describe the need, how our business idea would meet this need, and the general business proposition.

When my mother became ill and it appeared that she was not going to live much longer, she sold her home in Florida and came to live with me and my family in Northern California. After many weeks of seeing a variety of doctors, we learned that she had developed a lung infection and did not have long to live. The doctors suggested that I bring her home and make her comfortable. Hearing this news, my mother was both sad and relieved and made the decision to give herself over to the process of dying.

Wisdom is the art of knowing what to overlook.
— William James

Here are five practices that can be useful tools in reducing distraction or frenetic activity and cultivating focus and concentration. They are surprisingly easy to implement and, almost before you know it, can become positive addictions.

1) Appreciate Impermanence
I saw a cartoon in a recent New Yorker magazine in which two people were finishing their dinners at a Chinese restaurant and had just opened their fortune cookies. One fortune read, “You are going to die.”