Meditation Enhances Attention - Scientific American's Street Science

ill-directed mind

Whatever an enemy might do
to an enemy,
or a foe to a foe,
the ill-directed mind
can do to you
even worse.

-Dhammapada

Buddhist meditation can change the brain- a video related to Richard Davidson recent work on the effects of compassion and meditation in the brain

Make an island for yourself!

Make an island for yourself!

Work quickly! Be wise!

With impurities all blown away, unblemished,

you won't again undergo birth & aging.

-Dhammapada

The party is cancelled!

Imagine you invite people to a party in your house. Your house has six doors. Unfortunately for some reason you had to cancel the party last minute. You still have to be at the door to tell people the party is cancelled. If you get too involved in long conversations with your guests at one door, you might even get carried away and forget the purpose of meeting people at the door. Subsequently people may enter your house from the other five doors as well. They may not even be your friends you invited, they may overwhelm you and may even cause lots of problems. So what you have to do is to quickly greet the person at the door, explain the situation and swiftly move to the other guests as soon as they appear at that door. If you are very mindful and work hard you may be able to keep your house free from all the guests.

This is something like what you do in vipassana meditation. The house is your mind. The six doors are your six senses. Greeting people at the door is similar to the six senses meeting their respective stimuli. Talking to your guests at each door and not letting them in is like reflecting on the impermanence, suffering, and non-self nature of this process and letting them go. The same way you keep your house free from trouble as in the above metaphor, you can keep your mind free from suffering during meditation.

Note: This metaphor about the house was originally taken from one of Ajahn Chah's books. I have slightly modified it here.

Like the moon set free from a cloud...

His evil-done deed is replaced with skillfulness:

he brightens the world like the moon set free from a cloud.

-Dhammapada