the skills of attention

Ajahn Sucitto

[From last week… “If you use pūja on a regular basis, it aligns you to the ‘Triple Gem’ – Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha – by presenting content in terms of images, ideas and themes, and values and practices that guide the heart. It also occasions acts of steering and composing attention. So pūja works both on what the mind is dealing with, and how it operates.”]

Obviously, there’s a lot more to anyone’s life than doing pūja, but such ritual does support training in attention – the what and the how of experience – as well as in mindfulness and full knowing (sampajañña); they provide a skilful container and stable reference to the ongoing flow of experience. With these, we have some say over where our minds are running and how.

The what and the how of attention are co-dependent. Any kind of attention selects certain data from a wide range. It seeks content. But if, for example, you review your visual experience, you’ll note that although there is a wide field of seeing, the mind selects only a small portion of that to focus the eyes on. Then whatever attention has focused on leads the mind and affects the heart. How we attend selects what we notice, and what we notice affects how we attend – and that determines where the mind will go and what action will ensue. In detail: an underlying intention steers what attention selects, and through the twofold process of contact, a mind-state is born that sends out a train of thought.[16]

For example, an architect sees a house and notices the design and structure; a burglar sees it and notices the windows and doors. Even if the architect and the burglar don’t follow through with physical action, their hearts will have been aroused in certain ways and their minds will have considered and calculated. This mental process conditions their behaviour and even who they experience themselves as being. In abstract: underlying intention steers attention, attention gives rise to contact, and contact generates meaning and intention. Intention, attention and contact are all saṇkhārā; they lay down or “strengthen a track of mental kamma – and with that, the sense of ‘I am’ is born.

So, deep attention arises with the intention to consider how a perception of the scenario is affecting the citta. Rather than just reacting to sense-contact (including that of thought), you listen more deeply and sift through the flood of interpretations or digressions with an attention that looks into whether the sight, sound or thought (and so on) is useful or relevant, what the arousing or threatening feature of it is, and whether that sign is to be followed or not. Whereas untrained attention is like a bird that rapidly picks up any crumb and hastily moves onto the next crumb, deep attention is like a baleen whale that, while steering towards food, allows the ocean to pass through its mouth, catching edible krill in its baleen and letting everything else pass. This kind of attention is not judgemental, but it filters and gets “to the point, and thus moderates the psychologies that direct your life.[17]

This process reveals underlying biases – such as gratification impulses or impressions of being threatened – and it may also reveal unquestioned assumptions that program how we think and what we think about. So, if deep attention is strong, we can put analysis and further action on hold; we don’t try to fix things; we don’t go spasming into an opinion about ourselves based on that survey. And the simple beauty of this process is that when we suspend the reactions of what we assume we should and shouldn’t be feeling, there is clarity and spaciousness. That gives room for compassion or dispassion to arise.

Deep attention gets strengthened by mindfulness. Mindfulness is the ability to bear a theme, mood, thought or sensation in mind; it is defined in the discourses as ‘[one] bears in mind and recollects what was done and said long ago.’ When it is based on right view, ‘right’ mindfulness can linger on what deep attention locates in a way that corresponds to that view of cause and effect. For example, as it meets unskilful qualities like anger or greed, right mindfulness will bring around restraint and relinquishment; and as it meets skilful qualities such as generosity or truthfulness, the right view behind right mindfulness will support appreciation and lingering.

The steadying effect of mindfulness also allows for a fuller kind of knowing. This full knowing is of knowing qualities (dhammā) just as they are – void of the inference of ‘me, mine and myself’. Through freeing thoughts and moods from the reactive process of taking them personally, full knowing allows them to arise and pass. It’s also holistic and knows how the heart is being affected.

So, if the mind is getting overwhelmed or strained, full knowing may determine a shift of attention or of attitude. Guided by this, we may turn our minds to a more useful topic, or shift our attitude away from the notion of ‘making progress’ towards the practice of patience, inquiry and receptivity.

Without the filtering of deep attention, the mind loses direction and authority; without the lingering effect of mindfulness, there can be no steadying and moderating; and without full knowing, there would be no liberating insight. Instead, felt senses, meanings and mental feeling will tend to flood the citta, and become ‘What can I do? I’m stuck. I always will be …’ and thereby block a skilful response. But with the wisdom that trained attention brings, the first response we make is not to say or do something, but rather to firm up skilful qualities in the mind – and let go of reactions or hurtful responses. Consider the alternative: if I focus on my mental impressions and states through unprepared, insecure or biased attention, or view the world and others from the same basis, the more potent and firmly established afflictive meanings get. If I listen with an unsympathetic ear, or look with a critical stare, pre-judge, or fixate on what others do and say – all that will lead to suffering and stress. This is because such attention notices what it’s become accustomed to notice: her gracious demeanour (so much better than mine!), his irritating mannerisms (why can’t he be normal, like me?), my frustration at her inability to listen to me (just like my mother!), etc. It’s all about me; and it’s particularly sensitive to what I find uncomfortable. But if that’s all I notice, I get fixated on it, and these fixations psychologically locate me. I feel that ‘he’s always this way’ or I ‘see’ you in a certain way; or I only notice my bad habits. Careless, untrained attention is set to look out for old impressions, and is particularly attuned to any perception that fits the biases and wounds in the heart. It’s as if our wounds are looking for arrows to fill them. Thus, when we grab hold of wounded meanings, mental kamma is laid down, and the old perception is affirmed. Or even intensified. But if you want to get to the end of this cycle of kamma-vipāka, you have to cultivate skilful attention within the heart. [Continued next week 29 August 2024]