
Be aware that attention can shrink to the size of a grain of sand or expand to the size of the infinite. You can be the content of your latest problem or a participant of the divine nature.
By Angel Roberto Puente
New beginnings.
It’s that time of year when we try to remedy the shortcomings of the year before. I would suggest a resolution for all those sitters out there: find out what the essence of practice is and get out from under the weight of tradition.
As a dual-belonging practitioner, I’ve had to do it twice—it’s not easy. It’s like escaping a whirlpool in the sea. If you try to escape it at the surface, where the two currents that form it are colliding, you will get tired and drown. You have to let the whirlpool suck you to the bottom, where its cone shape is thin, and swim out. It’s a very scary situation, at sea and with traditions.
Tradition always starts with the recognition of something that transcends ordinary life; that seems otherworldly and fills an un-placeable longing.
All over the planet, certain individuals made contact with this ineffable vision—so ineffable that the only possible response was to remain in awe of it. After, followers decide to organize and so begins the long chain of religions. The essence of this vision and the possible ways to achieve it have reached us in this modern age in its many variations.
What was once exclusive to a few special people is now the experience of millions all over the globe. But the basic problem persists: trying to explain it. What is it? How can it be contacted?
Simple answers crash against the walls of tradition. New thinking is not favored. All experience has to force-fit the molds provided. You have to play the imitation game, dress up and pretend.
Are we ready to entertain the idea that we are being misled? If they have convinced us that enlightenment (however it is conceived) is something we have to strive for, with a lot of painful sitting and obeisance to a “master,” let me give us the good news. They are completely wrong. Maybe, at last, this is a message we can all accept.
We are born awake! The essential factor is a given of our human functioning, we can pay attention.
The capacity to pay attention is the manifestation of the non-material, spiritual force in us. Looking at it from different perspectives and reach, it is called awareness, consciousness, concentration, or vigilance. In experience (phenomenology) it always works the same. What we stop attending to disappears from existence.
It’s the phenomenon of looking for the keys you have in your hand, the glasses on top of your head, and the enlightenment you think is out of reach.
A simple inversión is all that is necessary. Realize the primacy of attention.
Remain in the attention mode at all times. If you think that it’s something special, observe this, What’s in your mind the second before you perceive something? For those who meditate on the breath, what comes just before the moment of making contact with the breath?
There it is.
Be aware that attention can shrink to the size of a grain of sand or expand to the size of the infinite. You can be the content of your latest problem or a participant of the divine nature.
Sit if you must, it is a very convenient laboratory for attention because it limits inputs. But it’s in the fire of daily life that attention is put to the test.
Watch your attention being sucked into your reactions to human encounters. Experience the relief and empowerment of detaching from them, just by returning to indiscriminating attention, wide open attention that does not freeze on one perception. At any given time there are probably hundreds of different things going on. Open your attention to as many as possible simultaneously.
Thoughts are always welcome; they let us see the ideas we hold deep down. But like clouds, we can’t hold on to them. Just let them float away. The problematic ones will diminish on their own. The emotional charge will die. It’s like seeing the same movie for the hundredth time.
Thinking is wonderful! If you understand its proper use. I’m dancing in delight as I write these words. I let my thoughts fly and accept everything that comes to mind. The irreverent, the evil, the kind, the loving, the past, the shameful. God and the devil.
I can pick and choose and refine ideas because that’s all they are. They have no real substance.
Just know you are thinking and keep your attention open to other perceptions; don’t fall into a trance.
Do you see how simple it is? This is nothing new. There is a story about renegade Zen master Ikkyu (15th Century): A student said to Master Ikkyu, “Please write for me something of great wisdom.”
Ikkyu picked up his brush and wrote one word: “Attention.”
The student said, “Is that all?” The master wrote, “Attention. Attention.”
The student became irritable. “That doesn’t seem profound or subtle to me.”
In response, Master Ikkyu wrote simply, “Attention. Attention. Attention.”
In frustration, the student demanded, “What does this word ‘attention’ mean?”
Ikkyu replied, “Attention means attention.”
Bankei Yotaku (17th Century), another rebel, would say: “Not a single one of you people at this meeting is unenlightened. Right now, you’re all sitting before me as Buddhas. Each of you received the Buddha-mind from your mothers when you were born, and nothing else. This inherited Buddha mind is, beyond any doubt, unborn, with a marvelously bright, illuminative wisdom. In the Unborn, all things are perfectly resolved.”
These teachers went against tradition and were practically erased from history.
Millennia before, the biblical psalm says, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?” That Spirit is a given in us. We all have it. Make this immaterial power your home. Don’t change it for fleeting perceptions. Come back to it again and again.
All the psychologizing going on is vacuous. Talking about emotions and attitudes with a, “one size fits all” view furthers delusion. It fixates ideas.
Attention will reveal what is true for us, and it will free us of its influence. There are a lot of issues that are in the purview of medicine and science. Knowing yourself is the best guide for seeking help. The “illuminative wisdom” of attention always surprises me.
So, this “new” year: Attention. Attention.
Photo: Pixabay
Editor: Dana Gornall
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