Sometimes when thinking about a problem, my hand picks up the wrong thing—what's going on?

When thinking about a problem, the mind consciousness may be very focused on deliberating the problem, with only a tiny fraction of its energy directed at noticing what the hand is about to pick up, and therefore it cannot correctly judge and choose whether the thing being picked up is really what one wants; the body consciousness's ability to discriminate objects is very poor, and it must discriminate together with the mind consciousness. Once the mind consciousness is distracted, one will pick up the wrong thing. So when attention is not concentrated and not unified, one will do things wrong. However, a well-trained person with meditative concentration can watch in six directions and listen in eight, coordinating and handling everything from all sides very well. Therefore, focus, meditative concentration (dhyāna), and the power of concentration are extremely important.

When one has the power of meditative concentration, the mind consciousness's deliberation can be clear and lucid, and with wisdom, one can carry out tasks in an orderly fashion—this is true both for worldly wisdom and for wisdom in supramundane Dharma. In the Buddha's teachings, in order to deliberate a dharma meaning clearly, one's attention must be extremely unified, without the interference of scattered thoughts. Only after focused deliberation can one understand the content of the dharma meaning and comprehend the true meaning within the sutras. Therefore, focused attention is very important, and the power of meditative concentration is the key and prerequisite for the arising of wisdom. A very few well-trained individuals can use one mind for many purposes and handle several matters at the same time, because their power of meditative concentration is highly developed; whereas some people cannot even do a single thing well, because their mind consciousness is too scattered and they have no power of concentration at all—their deliberation is disordered and superficial, and thus they cannot do anything well.