Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
More Attention?
lobster
Crusty Veteran
As we know meditation makes us more aware and more attentive to ... everything.
Initially the turmoil is present. The calm emerges. The attention presents itself.
Without question.
2
Comments
Thus have I heard ....Paying Attention is Time well Spent
Post-meditation appearances pop up out of nowhere sealed by suchness. Non-abiding, non-attention. Abiding in non-abiding that's proper attention.
Do neither agree nor disagree.
It’s funny isn’t it, how the money metaphors have become embedded in speech. Attention cannot be ‘paid’, time cannot be ‘spent’, and time is not ‘money’. It’s more important to say that “money is time, sometimes” because money can buy you the time to do other things.
But in many ways we notice that society seems to think that money is the most important factor in life, and likes to program this attitude into all kinds of unsuspecting minds, while in fact many other things are more important than money.
Freeing oneself from the primacy of money is an important step in any spiritual path.
Bring back bartering...
In the dervish path of spiritual poverty, those independent or not attached to wealth or poverty can wield either condition positively. For example wealth, with great and often secret generosity. This independence from outer form exists in dharma too BUT most of us are easily corrupted by wealth and often improved by poverty.
... and now back to the attention ...
I agree...However...
It's part and parcel of the conventional language used to communicate...I don't have an aversion towards using such words nor a desire...It's just a way of communicating/getting a point across ...not a big deal....unless one chooses to make it a big deal...by desiring not to use it... or having an aversion towards it's use... they are just words...that one may cling to or let flow...
Having/paying more attention mean more time spent with/in an attentive state (paying attention to detail, watching mind junk come and go/rise and depart... so to speak ) which in turn helps to create a more stable platform for greater meditative understanding...which can lead to a better quality of life...A mind free of useless accumulative clutter/junk (time wasters) such as thought patterns that more often than not can lead one up the garden path ....
One's does not need money for this to happen...money is not time...attention is time...and it's free...
It pays to spend one's time wisely..So to pay attention 'IS' time well spent
Although I do like a haggle
Certainly I have found it interesting to observe what happens to attention during meditation... sometimes it stays on the surface, sometimes it goes into the deep, if you’re not meditating on an object such as the breath.
@Kerome would you say 'into the deep' is singular. In other words not based on subject and experience/attention which is a duality.
Perhaps we might say attention without form ... which is one way to describe emptiness.
For me attention usually goes to the body if I attempt to meditate without an object. But sometimes it goes to a deeper place and seems to vanish, and my focus ends up being in a no-place? Perhaps in an empty place? What is there is loosely held attention in a kind of circle.
Is that clearer? I find it difficult to describe what I experience in meditation because I don’t have a teacher to discuss these things with, so it can be tough to put the right words to a state of being.
for those new buddhist practictioner,lobster describes the struggle towards ease in meditative practice.the more you practice,the more you build brain muscle . years go by the mind can be lit or buddha called luminous mind . the intention,imo,is to direct effort towards concentration,leading to better attention,leading to awareness or lobster puts it,attention presents itself.
with awareness,"see" through the other component of 8fold interelatedness in improving our functioning self .
so my guess,in zen ,the point is to open psyche of awareness,what buddha called traits of awake.not there but carrying on.
i want to say,its up to us as laypeople, to decide what is enough or helpfull in having a nice life.to me buddhism is about peace and love. i believe we are fine as laypeople the advice do you,is nice.
What we are talking about is subtle but it can be described in different ways. For example Clear Light, Buddha Mind, Luminous Being/Mind that @paulyso alludes to.
In concentration/monkey mind calming, there is very clearly a two mind state, often in conflict until subdued. If we are concentrated on walking/breathing/mantra/chore we need to become the concentration and the space (already present) unfolds.
Sometimes it sounds like nonsense. In a sense the focus relaxes, we allow the tightness of concentration to let go in itself ...
Hope this makes some sort of sense and equates with where we are heading (yeah we are going nowhere - Lobster slaps forehead) ... bare attention ...
https://accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nyanaponika/wheel121.html
lobster,what you explained is not nonsense to me.as lobster said is subtle.
personally ,in daozen,the aim is the natural state of awareness and being.
?
There I was (this is a true story) being ultimately nothing of any consequence. When I made a decision.
To not make decisions. ?????
https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/Secrets-of-Cultivating-the-Mind.pdf