ten-hut!

Genius . . . means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an inhabitual
way. -William James

Attention is very much like a searchlight, and it should be mounted in such a way that it can be trained on any subject freely. When we are caught up in some compulsion, this searchlight has become stuck. After many years of being stuck like this, it is hard to believe that the light can turn. We think that the compulsion has become a permanent part of our personality. But gradually, we can learn to work our attention free. As an experiment, try to work cheerfully at some job you dislike: you are training your attention to go where you want it to go. Whatever you do, give it your best concentration. Another good exercise is learning to drop what you are doing and shift your attention to something else when the situation demands. For example, when you leave your office, leave your work there. Don't let it follow you home and come into the dining room like an untrained dog, barking at your heels. All this is the spiritual equivalent of kicking exercises in a dance lesson or knee bends in an aerobics class. By practicing these exercises, anybody can learn to direct attention freely.~Eswaran

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What a valuable ability--to be able to appropriately and properly manage our attention. Have you ever known someone who always seemed to give you their undivided attention? We are drawn to those people who seem to genuinely care about what we have to say.

Does this capacity seem to be a rare and hard to find quality in life? It does to me.

I find it hard to manage my own attention. One of the tenets of my meditation teacher's practice is to develop a single pointed attention. This enables us to be concentrated on doing our best in each and every endeavor.

In an era where it seems that multi-tasking is highly valued, attention to the task--in a single pointed and focused way- may have been lost. One of the character qualities of Jesus that is clear is this capability to focus his attention on whatever was the matter at hand. Oh that he would impart that ability today!