Meditation increases concentration and mindfulness. That's what this book on Zen meditation says. It instructs me to concentrate for 20 minutes on nothing. Absolutely nothing. One strategy to prevent stray thoughts from entering the mind, the book says, is to concentrate on my breathing.

So I set my watch alarm for 20 minutes and started meditating. This should be easy, I thought -- I've gone whole days thinking about nothing.

Here is a transcript of my first meditation: