Attention

Attention is the root of all consciousness and all personal growth. It enables you to understand the difference between where you are and where you want to be. It distinguishes between reality and illusion by connecting your sensory input directly to present-moment awareness. If you practice attention, it grows stronger, just like a muscle.

Transcript

Hello everybody, Welcome to mindfulness live. This week we're talking about attention. Attention in society, Attention in our lives, The meaning of attention. Today I want to get right down to the basic mental factor of attention, Sati, As in satipatthana, Which is also known as mindfulness, Except it has a much bigger context when it comes to meditation. So we'll be looking at that in a minute and for the time being, First of all, Make yourselves comfortable, Take a nice breath. In fact, Take three nice long deep breaths. Just that calms you down, Slows you down. Calms your attention inside. And now you can really feel the breath, Feel your body at work, Pushing and pulling, Pumping air. And this very simple mechanical operation, In and out, In and out, Is actually a very complex biological function, Keeping you alive, Keeping your blood oxygenated, Keeping your cells energized, Keeping all your systems functioning, And also delivering a rhythm to your life, The most fundamental rhythm of all, Breathing in, Breathing out. And there's something about that rhythm, That breath, When you fix your attention to the breath, Slows you down, Clarifies your thoughts and your feelings, Helps you remember what it's like to be you. This isn't about defining or describing yourself, Just feeling what it's like to breathe as you. This is who you are. Breath comes and goes. And it's very simple. It's a sensation. You feel it in your throat, In your chest, Your nerve endings tingle as the air passes through, As the pressure increases and decreases. You feel the breath. Well, How do you feel the breath? How do you know you're breathing right now? What tells you? What are you looking at? What are you paying attention to? The breath comes and goes. Your attention wavers, But you keep bringing it back. Breath coming in, Pause. Breath going out, Pause. Following the rhythm. In touch with your body as it struggles to live, One moment to the next. It works, It pumps, It metabolizes. It also feels and thinks. And all of this is what we call you. Body, Consciousness, Awareness, Self-awareness, Mindfulness. Now taking three more breaths. Open your eyes. Words change and meanings change and definitions change. And since the 1990s, Most of the time most of what we're doing here has been described as mindfulness. But before that, There were other terms that they came from the same Pali and Sanskrit language words, Sati or smthi, Which means attention, Paying attention. It was often translated as bare attention. And there was this idea that this is what this is all about, Letting go of all the clutter of our thought and just getting down to this basic bare attention. And we're still trying to do that in many ways, But there's much more to it. And I think that's why that term has fallen out of favor. And now we've got a more global, A vaguer term, Mindfulness. Well, I mean, It is defined, But really it just means using your mind, Bringing your attention. But to what? So as one of the principal mental factors involved in Buddhist meditation, Mindfulness is described as something which has to be cultivated. It's a basic mental factor that we already have, But if we don't practice it, Then it really operates. We still pay attention to things, But it's not the things of our choice. And this is the basic dilemma. Every single experience, As we've said, Uses attention. Attention is a part of every experience, But whether that attention is guided consciously or subconsciously, That's the big question. So with bare attention, What we're trying to do, And we are trying to cultivate a little bit of bare attention, Especially at the beginning, We're trying to just let go of all the clutter that comes with awareness of each moment, The thoughts and the feelings and everything, And just get down to, Well, What is this experience? How does it feel to be here and breathe? And then we move on from there. How does it feel to feel, To recognize this move? And how does it feel to be me? So it sort of builds, It becomes complicated. But the basic starting point is attention to your breath, So starting with the body. And then we work through the four groundings of mindfulness, The body, The feelings, The thoughts, And the, I never know what to call this, Everything else. Well, It's not everything else, It's everything, Including all those other three. In other words, It's our passage through life, Our attempt to deal with things and to connect to other people and to connect to ourselves and understand who we are. So the basic practice of attention is to watch the breath. And first of all, There are exercises, Shamatha exercises are designed solely for that purpose, To increase your power of attention. Okay, So it's simply a strength or a muscle strengthening tool. All right. And we're going to practice that in a minute. And it's very simple, You watch the breath, And you keep a part of your mind in reserve for any distraction. And then when there's a distraction, You're supposed to know that and then return to the breath. But of course, We get distracted and we indulge in the distraction for a few seconds or sometimes minutes. So a lot of people have translated sati as remembering to remember, Or being mindful of mindfulness. So there's something reflexive going on here, There's this sort of two steps involved. And other people describe it as a sort of a policeman in your mind, Which keeps track of where your attention is. So you've got your attention, You've got your attention policeman, Who makes sure that if you're not paying attention, Well, What are you paying attention to? And what will bring you back? So it's not as simple as it sounds. And yet, It is a very simple experience when you get it right, When you're just sitting when you're relaxed, When there's no pressure, When you're not feeling that you have to have to get rid of all this overwhelm in my mind, Or this pressure, Or this anger, Or this fear, Whatever it is, When you really have come to that point where things are just sitting there. And you're just observing them, And you're just sitting there, And you're just a part of this moment. That sort of attention is what we're looking for. And that's what we want to cultivate, But not hang on to. Hanging on to it sort of spoils everything. It becomes an act of desperation, We lose that peaceful sort of acceptance, Which makes real mindfulness, Or it's not a good phrase, Which makes full mindfulness so fulfilling. Yeah. So you stay with the breath, You watch out for anything which distracts you from the breath. And then when it does, You simply return to the breath. And you do this again, And again, And again. It's, Gosh, I hate to use the word, But it's a very, It's a very boring sort of meditation. I mean, You just strengthen that muscle. I mean, How much can you do this, You know, You can increase the weights and you can sweat and you can scream and you can listen to music to distract you. But I mean, It's the same old. So fortunately, That's not the only sort of meditation. And also, It's not really very useful to do that in isolation, Just simply developing concentration. That's what you're doing, You're turning attention into concentration only. So the problem with that is that we're not developing just concentration, We're developing mindfulness, And mindfulness goes everywhere the mind goes. So it doesn't matter if you're distracted, You're supposed to be that way, You want to be that, In the sense that you want to be aware that you're distracted, You want to know how you're being distracted, You want to be able to name that distraction. Okay. And it might be something important, Like self-pity. Oh, Poor me, I feel bad for myself this morning, Because all this crap is always happening to me. Oh, I'm such a, Okay, So I need to recognize that mood, That state of mind and say to myself, Stephen, Come on. Right? And take a look at it. And understand it a little bit, Even if I can't shake it off right away, I can look into it a little more, I can see where it's coming from, I can recognize it as a pattern. So this mindfulness that we're talking about, Which is more than just attention, Bear attention to the present moment, It's an open hearted attention to everything. Of course, It's much more difficult. And of course, It's much easier to be distracted without knowing that we're distracted. We just go off on little tangents, And then we're thinking about it. Nevertheless, That's where the power of mindfulness is. The reason that bear attention became so central in those first years was because most of the people who were doing it were committed Buddhists. Okay, I was one of them. And we were really focused on this idea of mental bliss and escape, And wasn't a very healthy approach to it at all. But that I think very much was in evidence, We were really focused on that. And when you develop this concentration, Single pointed concentration, You do experience this bliss. And there is a tremendous feeling of freedom from the present moment. When you're when you're practicing it and getting it wrong, It's boring. But when you get it right, Once you've developed that ability to stay with the breath for seconds, Minutes at a time, Then there's a wonderful feeling that comes from that. But you have to stay in that state of concentration. That's the source of the feeling. And in the meantime, You're not actually doing anything. You're not cultivating any qualities of your mind, You're not becoming clear about how your mind works. You're not strengthening your positive qualities and weakening the negative ones. You're not observing the mental patterns which keep driving you into a corner, Or down to one extreme or another. You're simply enjoying the pleasure of bare attention of being here and now. And it's not a bad thing in itself, But it doesn't go anywhere. So we bring our attention to another level altogether, Which is ultimately, I mean, We talked about the four groundings, But the fourth grounding says that all its attention to everything. And if that sounds intimidating, I understand. Yeah, It is intimidating. How can I pay attention to everything? But if you don't see it as a moral thing, I'm not saying you have to pay attention to everything. And you might think, Oh, I have to otherwise I'm a terrible, Terrible meditator. And that is the way we think I understand it. But you also can see that as a dysfunctional attitude. And you can say, Put that aside. Okay. But yes, I can pay attention to things. And if I keep paying attention, I'll see more, I'll recognize more, I'll stay more. And from time to time, Also, I'll do this simple, Just plain bare attention. And that's how we start. We start the meditation with three deep breaths, Just watching, Just feeling. And let's do that now. Make yourselves comfortable. Take three conscious breaths. And you can tell yourself, I'm paying attention. I'm concentrating on the breath, Feeling the sensation of breathing and the results of breathing like this, Which is to calm me down. And this concentration, This focus, It feels good. And staying with the breath. But now letting it go. Not controlling it, Not making it deep, Long, Just watching. Pure empiricism. Just taking a step back, Putting down your prejudices and your preferences. And your goals. I have to meditate, I have to be concentrated. Put all that aside. And know that this moment is present. It's here with you. Or perhaps it's you that's with you. And you just breathe in. You're aware of being alive and conscious. And you're curious about what that means. Because I'm here. And I know I'm here. And it feels like the same thing. And it feels like a paradox. And this is just my mind playing with ideas, Words. So I return to the breath. And know that I like to do that. I like to get abstract words together to separate things using words and terms. So I return to this unified experience of breathing and knowing that I'm breathing. Being here, Knowing that I'm here. And of knowing how I know that. Because this experience feels like something. And this is what I know. My breath feeling like good. Or perhaps bad. Or even indifferent. But the feeling, Not just the touch of the breath, But the mood. And the emotions which are ready to respond to this mood. I see them all lined up, Ready to go. Letting go of the thoughts, Letting go of the feelings. Returning to the breath. Staying with the breath. And knowing that attention is everything. And if I give in to the urge to start thinking or remembering or worrying, Then that feeling of the present moment is gone. I have to find it again. So I try to identify those distractions as soon as they arise. Thinking. Perhaps thinking about the TV show I watched last night. Or thinking about what I'm going to do this weekend. Or if my mind is too busy, Simply thinking. Back to the breath. Back to the moment. Cultivating attention. First, To the breath. And then to everything else. Attention to this moment. Everything that is here and now, That you can perceive. And you're recognizing not just what you perceive, But that you perceive. That knowledge and knowing are the same thing. Or that they happen together. You know your breath because you're conscious. The breath is not separate from your consciousness. Your awareness. And so you guide your attention through the body, Feelings, Thoughts, Through everything. Knowing that if you put your mind to it, You can be present. You can be here. You can be mindful. You can be aware of your life. Of how it plays out. Of what you can do. And what you can't do. So it's very practical. The breath, Body, Even your feelings and thoughts, They're not mystical, They're not magical. They're things that happen in every moment. And you're tracking, Watching, Learning and growing just by watching these basics, These fundamentals of existence and of consciousness and of self-awareness. You're learning what it is to be you, Here and now. And so you stay with the breath and cultivate your attention. And now taking three more deep, Slow breaths. Open your eyes.

Reviews

Thank you! I enjoy your informative talks and meditations a lot. They are practical, effective and inspiring...Do you have any book recommendations on the attention/mindfulness topic? Blessings✨