by Joel D Zenie
Bare Attention is Reality uncluttered by the activity of a thinker who interprets and imagines according to past conditioned influences that have shaped perspective. This Attention clears perception and opens up the path of the Real, of What Is, not to become docile or resigned to human limitation, but that in humility there is an openness and connection with Peripheral Reality, so one is expressing harmony (or grace) in action, and altruistic/compassionate action at the highest level. To spend a lifetime clinging to the conditioned and biased personal view, to the past, not questioning one's own conditioned mental process, is to limit oneself to a narrow, mechanical, small minded and inauthentic way of thinking, feeling and living.
Attention to what is does allow for the desire to creatively express Self, allowing the inner to manifest as the outer, and with artistic appreciation that goes beyond the purely left-brained scientific, empirical, and often sterile observation of the outer perceptual reality. What we call objective truth is really a subjective story, a projection of mind, some of it individual and most of it a collective hallucination of consciousness. Previous conditioning has created the perception of "what is now" and it is essential to honor this as well as recognizing the need for changing it, not by discarding reality (what is) in favor of an ideal (what ought to be) but by acting in harmony with life as it is actually happening, in alignment with here and now. It is the only effective win-win good for ALL concerned way of acting spontaneously, authentically, creatively and artfully in the world... from the inside out.
The question that arises now is whether it is okay to put the love of Self (including close family, partner, friends, etc) first, after many years (as a western world raised individual) of having been disconnected from the really precious part of being alive, and not just as another physical human body (with a little egoic mind) looking to survive and make a success of itself in "the outside world". It seems that the transition to inwardness for many of us seeking to awaken spiritually is a full time occupation, sometimes a struggle and other times an infatuation... this individual life I call authentically my own is a new and exciting discovery, with much evolution and self expression to unfold.
While keeping this mindful awareness intact, which is attentive to surroundings, people, and the world at large, and has an interest or openness to peripheral connection, I still find it is a bare undeniable fact of existence that nearly all my time, interest and attention goes to my self and what I call *my life or life path*. Because I believe this to be true of most everyone in the world today, everyone who is human, I raise the question as to whether this self-absorption is a most necessary and natural evolution with regard to where so many of us are inwardly and also living within the conditions of the outside material (modern, western) world.
It is my perspective that as open as I am to understanding and accepting Universal Truth, the world I live in and the path I trod today is a very much an INDIVIDUAL Truth that is sometimes in perfect harmony with the Tao or Way of things and other times troubled, turbulent, full of turmoil. Either way you look at it, light or dark, it is the only Way that I know to simply Be who I really and truly Am, following the guidance of this Heart's Desire, and living in the Clear Light of Spiritual Illumination.
As Mohandes Gandhi famously said you have to "be the change/love you want to see in the world". Our first and foremost responsibility as spiritual human beings is in being true to Self, and living each moment from the Spiritual Heart of Being.
Aha! News ~ Insight for 2-20
Monday, February 20, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Bare Attention
By Mark Epstein M.D.
Common to all schools of thought, the unifying theme of the Buddhist approach is this remarkable imperative: "Pay precise attention, moment by moment, to exactly what you are experiencing, right now, separating out your reactions from the raw sensory events." This is what is meant by bare attention: just the bare facts, an exact registering, allowing things to speak for themselves as if seen for the first time, distinguishing any reactions from the core event.
It is this this attentional strategy that is followed throughout the meditative path. It is both the beginning practice and the culminating one: only the objects of awareness change. Beginning with the in and out breath, proceeding to bodily sensations, feelings, thoughts, consciousness, and finally the felt sense of I, meditation requires the application of bare attention to increasingly subtle phenomena. Culminating in a state of choiceless awareness in which the categories of "observer" and "that which is observed" are no longer operational, bare attention eventually obviates self-consciousness and permits the kind of spontaneity that has long intrigued the psychologically minded observers of Eastern practices. This the spontaneity that Western psychologists confuse with a true self idea. From the Buddhist perspective, such authentic actions leap forth from the clear perception of bare attention; there is no need to posit an intermediate agent who performs them.
The key to the transformational potential of bare attention lies in the deceptively simple injunction to separate out one's reactions from the core events themselves. Much of the time it turns out our everyday minds are in a state of reactivity. We take this for granted, we do not question our automatic identifications with our reactions, and we experience ourselves at the mercy of an often hostile or frustrating outer world or an overwhelming or frightening inner one. With bare attention, we move from this automatic identification with our fear or frustration to a vantage point from which the fear or frustration is attended to wit th same dispassionate interest as anything else. There is enormous freedom to be gained from such a shift. Instead of running from difficult emotions (or hanging on to enticing ones), the practitioner of bare attention becomes able to contain any reaction: making space for it, but not completely identifying with it because of the concomitant presence of nonjudgmental awareness.
Thoughts without a Thinker, pp 110-111
Common to all schools of thought, the unifying theme of the Buddhist approach is this remarkable imperative: "Pay precise attention, moment by moment, to exactly what you are experiencing, right now, separating out your reactions from the raw sensory events." This is what is meant by bare attention: just the bare facts, an exact registering, allowing things to speak for themselves as if seen for the first time, distinguishing any reactions from the core event.
It is this this attentional strategy that is followed throughout the meditative path. It is both the beginning practice and the culminating one: only the objects of awareness change. Beginning with the in and out breath, proceeding to bodily sensations, feelings, thoughts, consciousness, and finally the felt sense of I, meditation requires the application of bare attention to increasingly subtle phenomena. Culminating in a state of choiceless awareness in which the categories of "observer" and "that which is observed" are no longer operational, bare attention eventually obviates self-consciousness and permits the kind of spontaneity that has long intrigued the psychologically minded observers of Eastern practices. This the spontaneity that Western psychologists confuse with a true self idea. From the Buddhist perspective, such authentic actions leap forth from the clear perception of bare attention; there is no need to posit an intermediate agent who performs them.
The key to the transformational potential of bare attention lies in the deceptively simple injunction to separate out one's reactions from the core events themselves. Much of the time it turns out our everyday minds are in a state of reactivity. We take this for granted, we do not question our automatic identifications with our reactions, and we experience ourselves at the mercy of an often hostile or frustrating outer world or an overwhelming or frightening inner one. With bare attention, we move from this automatic identification with our fear or frustration to a vantage point from which the fear or frustration is attended to wit th same dispassionate interest as anything else. There is enormous freedom to be gained from such a shift. Instead of running from difficult emotions (or hanging on to enticing ones), the practitioner of bare attention becomes able to contain any reaction: making space for it, but not completely identifying with it because of the concomitant presence of nonjudgmental awareness.
Thoughts without a Thinker, pp 110-111
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