attention from the word "to attend" · My Home Is the Road

Attention — from the word "to attend." So it becomes — "I ATTEND." When you practice anything involving sustained focus of attention, pay attention to whether you are in a relaxed state. Any practice done through tension leads nowhere; tension has nothing in common with effort — effort is something else. When you are tense, you inevitably devote a significant portion of your attention to something you cannot use at that moment.

Therefore, all you need during practice is the practice itself. If you have come to practice contemplation of some object or phenomenon, then nothing other than the object of your contemplation should exist for you — there is only it and nothing more. There should be no "you" in the moment of practice itself. You need to remove even the observer, otherwise you won't be able to fully identify with the object and truly attend to it.

At the same time, the object can be either manifest in the everyday reality of things and phenomena, or immaterial in the form of an image, an information block, or a feeling — that is, anything unmanifest.

You should also not try to drill into the object of concentration with your attention — it is pointless and will not lead you to the results you seek from practice. Moreover, any persistent drilling stems from tension, and tension is a waste of energy and time, which, as we know, must be spent efficiently.

So relax, shed your shell, let go of everything, and let the object of concentration share its wisdom with you.

#ArthurOHarra #Contemplation #Concentration #FocusOfAttention #MindfulnessPractices #FreeAttention