O, but they say the tongues of dying men
Enforce attention like deep harmony:
Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain,
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.
Shakespeare / Richard II
Winter, in Monsey. I am at my desk, watching through the window the trees on the other side of the lawn. Except for a few evergreens, the forest is but the gathering of bare trunks. The landscape is still, an invitation to silence myself within, even though in a far corner of my untamed mind, words are unable to cease babbling; they are like the leaves of the bamboo grove in front of the forest that never stop chatting with each other. I feel an unusual but direct relationship with Nature and its vastness. This feeling triggers the memory of a similar impression I had when I was eight. Every year at Easter time, my big brother and I would go to the country house of our grandmother for the school holidays. The bus stop was about a mile from our final destination. In the cold early morning we walked uphill on a dirt lane. Around us nature was just waking from its winter sleep and nobody was working yet in the fields. In contrast to the crowded city we had just left, we found ourselves in a world of silence animated only by the whisper of the wind in the bushes, the cooing of a dove announcing the spring, and the barking of a dog far away.
Penetrated by the scent of wet soil mixed with the smell of manure and rotting hay, a sensation that remains extremely vivid in me even today, I enjoyed a peculiar alertness, as if a new life was pervading the whole of myself. Instead of the isolation and loneliness of my daily life as a little boy in a big city, I felt a deep bond with the earth, the trees, the animals, I had the strong impression of being rooted in the ground as well as within myself.
Now, in front of me, the subtle shiver of twigs moves up to the top of the trees. All of a sudden, squalls shake the branches, and then again, abruptly, there is a lull; everything around is imperceptibly breathing, almost whispering, at rest.
For a while I am fascinated, not just taken by what I see, but rooted in a kind of contemplation that includes both the forest and myself, the invisible force of the wind in the trees and the mysterious action of my own breath, as if both were flowing from the same source. I am not doing anything, I am not attracted to anything in particular—the mind is silent—but nevertheless I feel engaged in a very specific action: I am attending without expectation. I am attending both myself and the world outside. After a while, however, the mind can no longer stand being mute, the state fades away as words again take possession of my mind.
“The head is a crowded rag market”, said Theophan the Recluse. “Whilst you are still in your head, thoughts will not easily be subdued but will always be whirling about, like snow in winter or clouds of mosquitoes in the summer.”1
I need to acknowledge that labeling things does not necessarily bring understanding. At the same time I cannot deny that almost everything I know or believe I know has been learned through words. Each time I find myself confronted with a consuming question, I need words to ponder about it, and then even more words to come to the resolution of a thought. But by experience I know that my faculty of attention on that level has no strength, it does not last, and finally, taken by the flow of associations, I find myself drowning in ceaseless inner talking.
What is attention? Where does it come from? It seems that everybody knows what is meant by the word ‘attention,’ since in one way or another, attention is constantly called upon in our daily life. But trying to find a rational definition of this word is as hopeless as explaining a koan, and the only way to understand it, I believe, will come not from expounding, but from staying in front of the question...
Is attention a function of the mind alone, as it seems to be commonly accepted? Is it always so? So many things have been learned since the beginning and so many forgotten, except those linked to, or part of, an experience where the memory is not just from the mind, but is a trace left in the bones and in the feeling. Or does attention actually emanate from varied sources, from different brains in response to specific demands?
For example, the heartfelt care of a mother for her newborn child, the attention of a physicist trying to find the resolution of an equation, the instinct of a driver avoiding a collision at the very last second, or the endurance of a hunter stalking game.
What is usually understood as attention is an intent, called and driven by some interest, some attraction towards a particular task to be performed, or a new knowledge to be learned. In other words, this attention belongs to our daily life. The characteristic feature of this kind of attention is its inability to remain pure for long; it fluctuates and is quickly captivated or disturbed by parallel judgments, commentaries, or by wandering associations that have nothing to do with the subject of my concern.
As a consequence, when the effort of concentration is too demanding, what was initiated voluntarily at the beginning now becomes attachment and identification. And if it follows the development of a single action, it may go as far as being a factor of exclusion. I pay attention because I wish to give form to something, be it a thought, or writing, or any material deed—I actually wish to get a result.
This tendency of mine corresponds to an attitude automatically learned since the beginning of life from my surroundings, through education and culture, an attitude that compels me to struggle to get things done, which explains why I so often mistake identification for attentiveness.
There are instances nevertheless that bring about drastic changes, for example, the physical and emotional turmoil experienced during adolescence as a child is gradually transformed into an adult. It is a moment of wonder and anxiety, even sometimes despair, a moment where perhaps for the first time this question is raised: “Who am I? What is the meaning of my being here on earth?”
But then, oblivion; this question is forgotten and when for some reason it is remembered and emerges on the surface again after years of indifference, I find myself in front of the unknown, and the acknowledgement of that unknown brings about a dramatic and humbling change within me.
Who am I? Instinctively I know that I will not get an answer by just pondering about it, because it is not a question arising only from my mind: it is the whole of myself that is in question.
In response to this situation, if I really try to stay in front of this interrogation, I see the unremitting inner talking which I usually call thinking fall away, and it is as if another part of the brain is made available, opening the way to a finer level of attention.
Coming from this other part of my mind, a diffuse relaxation arises, and playing the role of a synapse, it establishes connections between the different parts of the body. For a short moment the energies of mind, body, and feeling come to a relative harmony and I am aware of a totally new state of presence, a new level of consciousness, integrating all the present resources within.
I notice a reversal in the way I experience sensations, usually perceived primarily as tensions. What then takes place is an inner current of an all-pervading sensation that is no longer static or attached to a form, but is a moving energy which can be said to be actually the awakening of an attention from the body.
As the relaxation infuses itself further inward, as the vigilant attention of the mind and the attention of the body blend deeper, a new level of perception is reached, more subtle and at the same time bringing more basic support to the whole experience. What is discovered then, or rediscovered—so often blocked or even repressed within—is the conviction of the heart.
When in our childhood we begin to discover the world, our amazement in front of anything new—a tree, a horse, a worm, the stars in the sky—not only captivates us with the novelty of the encounter, but actually, for a moment transforms the whole of our sensitivity. It is a moment of communion between our inner and outer worlds without the contradiction that usually exists between the two. We have certainly been granted such moments of clarity more often than we can remember today.
In that respect I am reminded of another event shared with my big brother, also at our grandmother’s house, during the summer. We waited until late at night, when there was not the slightest activity in the house, then we went up to the attic and out through the dormer onto the roof. Lying down on the slope of roof, we stared at the stars. Watching the Milky Way, it was as if we were allowed, for a moment, to be part of this deep mystery. I found myself under the sway of this tremendous play of energy and at the same time I had a sense of total freedom. There was a quite unwonted feeling of being included in that immensity, of being invited to participate in what seemed to be the endlessness of time.
When I am again granted access to a similar experience, which may happen in the practice of meditation for example, the same kind of attention emerges, allowing me to participate in that same current of energy. This attention operates as a magnetic field that has a specificity of its own which is its immediacy, that is to say, whose action is manifested in the present moment, without associations with past or future. It is the beginning of an understanding of a completely new kind of relation with myself, no longer as the forceful struggle against all physical, emotional, or mental tensions, but as a surrender to this new force of attention, which deactivates what was at the source of those tensions.
It is like being under the look of an intense and radiant vigil, attending at the same moment to the whole of my presence and to my engagement in an outer activity. As the balance within changes, a new order begins to establish itself; a new hierarchy appears which acknowledges the existence of a dimension of a different magnitude from the narrow world with which I am identified in my daily life: I feel attended to, at the same time that I am attending.
“Keep your eye on the functioning of your inner life,” says Meister Eckhart, “and start from there—to read, or pray, or to do any outward deed. If however, the outward life interferes with the inner, then follow the inner; but if the two can go together, that is best of all and then man is working together with God.”[2]
But in my struggle for survival, when I am mainly attracted to and identified with outward matters, I again forget this inner relationship. St. John says, “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”[3]
“In the beginning was the Word”—the wind of breath, prana in the Hindu tradition, the Light in Taoism—permeated and animated everything since the beginning of time.
Is it possible to remember and open myself again to the attention coming from this higher level of energy, and at the same time to be engaged in the action required for the maintenance of my life?
Are the laws by which celestial bodies within the same system relate to one another and maintain their reciprocal equilibrium manifestations of an attention of a different order? If yes, is it possible for us to have access to this attention, at least in certain conditions?
It is here perhaps that the awareness of the grandeur of the creation, as revealed in the vision of a star-studded sky, might help to find a new way of questioning.
Can the answer be found in the innocence of a very young child marveling at the sight of the Milky Way?
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| Copyright © 2013 Gurdjieff Electronic Publishing Featured: Fall 2013 Issue, Vol. XII (1) Revision: April 15, 2023 |
1 Philokalia. London: Faber & Faber, 1992.