Chapter Seven

If your thought is a rose,

you are a rose garden;

if it is a thorn,

you are fuel for the bath stove.

                                Rumi, Mathnawi  II: 278

Why study attention? What is the faculty of attention? It could almost be said that a human being is attention. Whatever occupies our attention--whether inwardly or outwardly, whether profound or trivial--is what we are at that moment. Therefore, if we are attentive only to the outer world, we forfeit our own inner life. On the other hand, if we are excessively introverted, we cut ourselves off from the impressions of the outer world that could enrich and enliven us. If we attend only to the material world, we sacrifice the spiritual. If we think we can focus exclusively on the spiritual, we might lose ourselves in a world of dreams that never connect with reality. We need not only attention but balance--balance between the narrow and the wide, the outer and the inner, the material and the spiritual.

Life requires so much of us that none of us can afford to be without our full attention. More often than we know, moments come that will make a difference to the quality of our lives. These are moments of choice that will never come again. They are moments of service, because others need our presence and attention, and moments of understanding in a world of much misunderstanding.

  The study of attention is also the study of the ego and the essential Self. One of the qualities of the ego is that it has little attention of its own; instead, its attention is captured and compelled by what it likes and dislikes. The awakened Self, on the other hand, can direct and sustain attention.

Observe how much of our attention is absorbed in the struggle between like and dislike. Attention roams freely and unconsciously until it strikes on something that either attracts or repulses it; then it is caught. Presence allows us to notice how and when attention is caught and how to free it again. As we begin to see what compels our attention and why, we also weaken the tyranny of the ego and begin to create an impartial observer.

In our inner world we can learn to notice identification--the involuntary and unconscious absorption of our attention in inner processes. We tell ourselves we will be patient, kind, or generous; then, in another moment, we have forgotten this because some desire or frustration has so captured us that we have lost our observing attention and are racing out of control in just that state that we intended to avoid. We have lost ourselves through identification.

On the other hand, there may be times when we choose to identify ourselves with something. We may want to identify with a feeling of joy or love, to play with a child, or to act as if we are a horse. This conscious, intentional identification can have a positive value in our lives, but this value consists precisely in its being conscious and voluntary.

 At the end of a day of conscious work my teacher would say, "Maybe now you have a little free attention." Free attention is a power of the soul that throws light on whatever it meets. It develops when the soul begins to give itself out through its attention. At first it may require great and systematic efforts to be developed.

We know how difficult it can be to pay attention. At the moment that we notice something, there is no effort. Effort enters when we try to sustain attention. We can bring ourselves to a state of attention, but we cannot keep it from dissolving. Our capacity for voluntary attention is small.

The source of attention is outside of time, but under the temporal conditions in which the human mind usually functions, attention is disturbed and dispersed. If we are truly gathered at the center of our own Being, higher energies of our psyche are able to organize the lower energies and lend them a coherence they in themselves lack. But, at the same time, the lower energies (all the impacts of environment and conditioning) are able to disorganize the higher ones and introduce into them something of the incoherence of the lower levels. Out of this dynamic comes the struggle to keep our attention on something.

The world is governed by people capturing one another's attention. Unless we develop some capacity for a free attention, we are the prey of those who can monopolize attention in the political and economic domains.

We need to look at the possibility of a voluntary attention in which we ourselves are taking the initiative. Voluntary attention is not completely determined by our reactions to outside stimuli. If we cannot tell the difference between voluntary and involuntary attention, we are living in a dream world. Work with attention enters into all work on oneself. "To act from oneself" is the measure of real will.

It is our responsibility to use our everyday conditions as an opportunity for the development of attention. We can learn to develop attention in at least four major directions: the outer and the inner, the narrow and the wide.

We can begin with attention to the sensations of our own physical organism, because sensation is the interface between the outer and the inner, the material and the psychological. We can sustain a sense of our physical presence through being aware of sense impressions: sound, touch, smell, and the sense of our own bodiliness, especially our breathing.

We can notice how our attention moves between the outer world and our inner world. The outer world is the source of all kinds of impressions that we can receive more consciously. The more we consciously receive these impressions, the more we will be enlivened by them, because they are a kind of food for the nervous system and can be better digested with the "enzymes" of conscious awareness.

The inner world includes thoughts, emotions, and subtler psychic impressions. With presence we can overcome our unconscious identification with these processes and know ourselves as we are. We can avoid becoming the victims of our own unconscious processes. Just as we can consciously release physical tensions through our awareness of the body and its postures, we can also release emotional tensions by recognizing them. As with physical tensions, our emotional tensions have greater power over us the more they are unconscious. Bringing our attention fully and willingly to emotional contractions and blockages has a transformative power.  The validity of the current psychological technique known as focusing is based in the self-healing power of voluntary attention.  In fact much of the effectiveness of any psychotherapy, independent of the models and beliefs of the therapist, is the quality of therapeutic attention that is realized together by the therapist and client.  It may be the most important contribution of the therapist to teach another how to attend to inner emotional states and processes.

Presence allows a two-way attention that is the essence of relationship and communication. With this two-way attention we can be simultaneously aware of our inner state and the state of another.

Sometimes we are so totally identified with our own feelings that we are not capable of being in a relationship. At other times we may lose ourselves in the state of another, especially when it is negative, and not be able to separate ourselves from the problem enough to be objective. In relationships this monitoring of outer and inner attention can help us to be more sensitive to others and more aware of our own feelings at the same time.

We can also attend with a wide or a narrow focus. As is appropriate to the needs of the moment, we can either open up or concentrate. What a joy it is to widen the aperture of consciousness so that while walking through nature we have a global sense of being there, and what a joy to focus on a detail that we have chosen! What a pleasure it is to open up to a panoramic sense of presence! This is the joy of being fully human, of taking responsibility for the capacity of our own attention.

Gradually we learn to sustain a focus with steadiness and continuity, with patience and interest. We should be able to construct an intentional image or maintain a state of receptivity. This observing stabilizes itself as an inner presence. This stable inner presence then becomes a source and ground of attention itself.

What we choose to give our attention to we energize. We should accept certain impressions and not dwell on others. The more conscious we can make this process, the less we will energize those things that conflict with our well-being and values. Attention develops as the gatekeeper of all our impressions.

We learn not to let the mind wander too far from the essential Self, even while we are open to outer things. More and more we work to keep our attention on Being itself. We can learn to call upon a very refined attention, to keep an awareness of the deepest truths in the most ordinary circumstances. This can be done only if our attention is not easily coerced and distracted.  As we begin to develop an independent attention, one that can look outward and inward at the same time, we begin to acquire the presence that is the enabling factor of all spiritual work.

The training of the attention is a necessary part of our spiritual training. It is an essential factor in the mind spiritualizing itself, in the development of the soul. Eventually, attention may become luminous and creative. It directs the power of the soul. As we consciously give our attention to others--to creative acts and to service--we are also giving of our soul, and this is how the soul grows.

I remember days of difficult labor in a spiritual school where we were encouraged to keep a balanced attention through all kinds of situations. I was given the task of grooming a horse. From mane to tail, from the hooves right up--I worked for hours. Then the teacher came and after a brief inspection said, "Very poor job, superficial and sloppy." He and I watched as my heart sank. But then something rebounded: I knew I had done my best; I knew that I could not be a slave of reward or blame. In that moment, I saw the twinkle in his eye as he turned and left.