The Illusion of Directing Attention
La ilusión de dirigir la atención
A reflection on the belief that we control attention, and how releasing that belief reveals something that was already present prior to thought.
The Illusion of Directing Attention
A reflection on the belief that we control attention, and how releasing that belief reveals something that was already present prior to thought.
We hold a belief that we control attention, that there is an agent, an "I," directing it. Yet attention is much like thought in this regard: thoughts come and go, and attention moves. The absorption I have been pointing to is, in a sense, an invitation to drop the belief that we are controlling attention. You could also put it as simply dropping the attempt at controlling. But without the belief that we are controlling, something rests.
Attention returning to its source
I have heard it described as attention moving back and resting at its source. That is one way to describe it. It is as if something other than the body-mind starts to become the foreground. This can be experienced as attention moving out of thought. And it is also what always allows everything.
Already the case
Many of the things I talk about, these pointings toward certain changes or shifts in attention, perception, and thought, are in a sense describing something that is already the case. It then becomes obvious as already the case. Something is already aware of what is prior to thought. We can point to a practice, an exercise, where you have a sense that a shift occurs and you become aware of what was prior. But it was already there.
This is paradoxical in a way. We can speak about attention moving out of thought on its own, or about doing it through our own will, or about it simply happening. That sense of movement is actually something recognizing what is already prior to it. Then it is experienced as a shift, as a movement.
Shift through allowing
Over time, if in meditation you allow yourself to become absorbed, there will be a shift in sensation and perception. It is like that well-known image of the vase and the two faces. What you see changes, not because the image has changed, but because something in the way of seeing has shifted. What was background becomes foreground, and what was foreground recedes. The seeing itself was always there.