Budgeting your attention

Helminski has once again captured my interest. For the fourth time, I am re-reading the book he wrote, “Living Presence”. He focuses on the concept of voluntary attention. 

Helminski poses,”Life requires so much of us that none of us can afford to be without our full attention”. 

The saying, “pay attention” subtly explains that attention itself is of great value. “Pay” is to give something of value to another who is selling something. To 'pay attention' is to agree to being fully present in that moment. It gives credence to the military command, “Attention!” It is time to receive orders, or to pay respect.( Respect: another thing for which we must pay. But that is for another post.)

Have you ever noticed that you can be in the midst of telling a story to another and in the midst of that story, the listener loses attention and obviously is not listening to the story anymore?(Perhaps this illustrates that my own stories are not very interesting!)

What strikes me about this quality is that it is as the author says, “The study of attention is also the study of the ego and 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 its likes and dislikes. The awakened Self, however, on the other hand, can direct and sustain attention.

Nowadays we speak of an “attention deficit”, in fact some describe this trait as a disorder. There are so many situations, issues, objects clamoring for our attention. An attention deficit, most likely, is a natural human trait.

How much of your attention is distracted by the concept of “Like” and Dislike”? Think of social media. On Facebook, one continues to “like” things and by ignoring or limiting attention, “dislike” things. It is obvious that many people “like” cute kittens, or puppies, or pratfalls. Politics also grab our attention, or issues that are important to others.

Attention is like a “free range chicken”. In the presence of the observer, it roams freely and unconsciously until it lands on something, and that issue or video has literally captured the attention of the observer.

As I meditate on this, I realize how much of my attention I waste on trivialities. So much! We are captive to our likes and dislikes. It is an example of our binary mindset. How do we obtain a unified mindset, seeing matters on a continuum, not defining matters under— : “I like that” and 

“I don’t like this”?

Life goes by, as a leaf floats down the river, and I as an observer, can choose to allow most leafs to float on by, without comment or attentiveness. These matters can hopefully be sorted according to voluntary attention. In short, I am learning to choose to budget my own attention. There are very many things to which I cannot “pay” attention. 

They are simply not in my attention budget!