About Attention.

Awesome article, Mattie.

Gracey, that makes sense. Personally, I tend to focus on different things, depending on the type of meditation I am doing.

[Xan]

Originally Posted by Gracey

...if i pay attention to emotion, even love, then my perceptions will not be clear...

The more I pay attention to love that is not emotion but the primal essence of existence - love itself - the clearer I get in all ways.

Emotional love is for someone or something. Love itself just Is... love for-no-reason and with-no-object.


Xan

[Gem]

Attention is applied to what is just there and requires no imagining, for this feeling this feeling.. is it invented OR does it simply occur spontaneously.

The breath might be the object of attention, not imagined, but something which was happening unintentionally... and unoticed until attention was placed on it.

Then we say 'breathe like this, breath like that' but no. It flows Like a river, and you feel it flowing without adding water to make it deeper.

[AstralProjectee]

"About Attention" What a great topic for me. I'm reading "The Attention Revolution" from the library. It's by B. Alan Wallace, a accomplished meditator. Lucky for us, many have walked the path of contemplation before us and have given us a road map to transcend the mind. From a Buddhist perspective you have to still or clam the mind before you can investigate it with insight as in vipassana meditation. So the first step in stilling and calming the mind it to develop a good shamatha practice. Alan Wallace is very clear on how to do it and what is required to accomplish shamatha. First he says you should develop attention by just focusing on the feeling of the breath and the air that goes in and out of the nostrils. By focusing on the feelings of this you can start rewiring your brain to focus better.

Alan Wallace makes it very clear that the average western mind is so wild and needs to be tamed. There is little stability in the mind of the average person. One thinks one thing and then his mind is swept up by the karmic wind of the mind and almost has amnesia and forgets what was just thought. They can't stabilize anything. In the east they call the mind, the monkey mind because it's always jumping from branch to branch, thought to though, tree to tree, idea to idea. The mind ceaselessly goes on and on trying to find something. From what I have read this is a symptom of being in samsara. As long as your in samsara you will be endlessly roaming and seeking for something. As a matter of fact samsara means "to flow on", to perpetually wander, to pass through states of existence. The only way to break the cycle is to still the mind and tame it. You tame the mind with attention and meditation. True meditation can't be correctly done if you have not trained your attention in meditation. Once you train the mind in meditation with attention with single pointed concentration you can dissolve the mind into space. Then meditation is no longer a concept, but you become the meditation. This cannot be accomplished without good attention.

Alan Wallace makes it very clear what it will take to accomplish Shamatha. It can take any where from a couple months if one already has good attention. Up to 5,000 hours to accomplish and up to 10,000 hours to perfect. This may seem impossible to some people. But if one can commit yourself you will have mental abilities WAY beyond the average person, which would make it so appealing. These ablities include having the ablitity to accpolish anything you want without the usual road blocks most people have. Also having extrasensory perception and much more.

Here is a quote from Padmasambhava.

"Flawless shamatha is like an oil-lamp that is unmoved by the air.
Wherever the awareness is placed, it is unwaveringly present,-
awareness is vividly clear, without being sullied by laxity,
lethargy, or dimness,- wherever the awareness is directed, it is
steady and sharply pointed,- and unmoved by adventitious
thoughts, it is straight. Thus, a flawless meditative state arises in
your mindstream,- and until this happens, it is important that you
settle the mind in its natural state. Without genuine shamatha
arising in your mindstream, even if awareness is pointed out, it
becomes nothing more than an object of intellectual understanding.
So you are left simply giving lip-service to the view,
and there is the danger that you may succumb to dogmatism.
Thus, the root of all meditative states depends upon this, so do
not be introduced to pristine awareness too soon, but practice
until you have a fine experience of stability."

Here is a quote from "The Attention Revolution" from the library. It's by B. Alan Wallace

The initial achievement of shamatha is described as preliminary or as access
to the full realization of the first meditative stabilization (dhyana). The
Buddha declared that with the achievement of the first meditative stabilization,
one is for the first time temporarily freed from five types of
obstructions (avaranaJ, or hindrances (nivarana), that disrupt the balance of
the mind. These are (1) sensual craving, (2) malice, (3) lethargy and
drowsiness, (4) excitation and anxiety, and (5) uncertainty. Buddhaghosa
commented that as soon as the counterpart sign arises, the hindrances are
quite suppressed, the defilements subside, and the mind becomes concentrated
in access concentration.
When you first gain the mental and physical pliancy associated with the
freedom from these hindrances, you experience a rush of bliss that appears
to be a symptom of achieving an unprecedented level of mental health.
The Buddha was presumably referring to this bliss as a sufficing condition,
or immediate catalyst, for the achievement of samadhi. Here is one of his
more detailed accounts of this experience:

"Separated from pleasures of sense, separated from unwholesome
states of mind, one attains to and abides in the first stabilization,
which is accompanied by coarse examination and precise investigation,
born of seclusion, and is joyful and blissful. And one
drenches, fills, completely fills and pervades one's body with joy
and bliss, born of seclusion so that there is nowhere in ones body
that is not pervaded by it.""

Surprisingly in the attention revolution you might think that they would have a lot of hard to do exercises. I have not found that to be the case. The few exercises that are given are simple enough that a child should be able to do them. What really makes the difference though is the amount of time given to the practice. Alan use to spend many hours a day meditating and perfecting his attention, concentration, and meditation. If you want to train you attention here is a simple exercise that you can do to start.

Find a comfortable position make sure you will have little if any distractions. Clam the mind and feel into your body. Take a few deep breaths and then focus on the air that is going in and out of your nostrils. Simply feel as the air goes in and out of your noise. Watch the feeling, don't control the breathing in anyway. Just watch your default breathing. If you breath shallow breaths, that is fine. Then watch your self breath shallow breaths. If your attention gets distracted that is fine just simply slowly bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath in your nostrils. You will have thoughts what will sweep you away but that is OK. When you realize this just softly bring your attention back to the breath. It's a very simple exercise nothing complicated. Try to notice that your body gets into a rhythm of breathing it's good as long as you also have your attention on your nostrils feeling. As long you you keep this up you can reach a better stage of attention.

Alan's analogy goes something like this. There is 3 parts of meditation that get better with time. The tree of meditation is with the roots, trunk, and foliage. As your practice meditation practice grows, the roots of relaxation go deeper, the trunk of stability gets stronger, and the foliage of vividness reaches higher. This is a good way of seeing it.

Peace!

Originally Posted by Xan

The more I pay attention to love that is not emotion but the primal essence of existence - love itself - the clearer I get in all ways.

Emotional love is for someone or something. Love itself just Is... love for-no-reason and with-no-object.


Xan

I could not agree more with this.

When I go into meditation, where I feel and sense that I am in love. Love is in everything and flows in the energy around us.

It is so sad that love has been tainted to one dimension due to the corporate marketing of "Love".

It's in this love I like to keep my mind focused and try to bring this awareness in my day-to-day life.

[AstralProjectee]

Originally Posted by redemption

I could not agree more with this.

When I go into meditation, where I feel and sense that I am in love. Love is in everything and flows in the energy around us.

It is so sad that love has been tainted to one dimension due to the corporate marketing of "Love".

It's in this love I like to keep my mind focused and try to bring this awareness in my day-to-day life.

Thanks for that redemption. I also agree with this. Only thing, I have not reached that level and many other haven't either. Hence we need a different kind of meditation. One that appeals to beginners. I would love to go into meditation and feel that love and use that as a guide in my meditation. Until then I will continue to use the above method.

Peace!

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by AstralProjectee

Find a comfortable position make sure you will have little if any distractions. Calm the mind and feel into your body. Take a few deep breaths and then focus on the air that is going in and out of your nostrils. Simply feel as the air goes in and out of your noise.
Watch the feeling, don't control the breathing in anyway. Just watch your default breathing. If you breath shallow breaths, that is fine.
Then watch your self breath shallow breaths. If your attention gets distracted that is fine just simply slowly bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath in your nostrils.
You will have thoughts what will sweep you away but that is OK. When you realize this just softly bring your attention back to the breath.
It's a very simple exercise nothing complicated. Try to notice that your body gets into a rhythm of breathing it's good as long as you also have your attention on your nostrils feeling.
As long you you keep this up you can reach a better stage of attention.

Alan's analogy goes something like this. There is 3 parts of meditation that get better with time. The tree of meditation is with the roots, trunk, and foliage. As your practice meditation practice grows, the roots of relaxation go deeper, the trunk of stability gets stronger, and the foliage of vividness reaches higher.
This is a good way of seeing it.

Peace!

Excellent.

I have meditated for decades. A couple of times only, for 6 hours.

I find it as complicated as holding a baby and loving it.

Our hearts are the key - our longing and yearning to be graced by our Beloved.

And then the fulfilment - no more yearning -- our heart's desire has come.

Pure Love Itself.

But, that's me.

[Gem]

... and of course love will be the fairy tale that arouses the most very hivgest expectation, so you lose attention and fall to the dreamscape of eternal desire.

Silence, no story.

"Simply feel as the air goes in and out of your nose." ~ Astral Projectee.

[AstralProjectee]

Originally Posted by Gem

... and of course love will be the fairy tale that arouses the most very hivgest expectation, so you lose attention and fall to the dreamscape of eternal desire.

Silence, no story.

"Simply feel as the air goes in and out of your nose." ~ Astral Projectee.

This is totally taken out of context. Reread what I wrote with everything else.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by AstralProjectee

This is totally taken out of context. Reread what I wrote with everything else.

I did read it. Then I quoted a line.

What I meant wasn't directed at you, and in the other thread it wasn't either.

Stories of this incredible love can only serve to increase desire and expectation. Maybe just feeling the breath is way too boring and people are thinking 'c'mon love, what's taking so long, how come this isn't working, where's god like they promised'

...There is no story going on when you pay attention.