Attention!

The real miracle of mindfulness is the merging that takes place when focused attention is at work. Not thinking, but engaging in the dance of mindfulness. When we read a great novel, we forget we are sitting in a chair or lying on a bed in a room full of other potential inputs. We enter the world of the text and experience that world in a timeless state. Sometimes hours can pass without any awareness of the passage of time. When we are playing a sport, running the floor with teammates, reacting to their movements and anticipating their new positions moment by moment, we do not "think." To "think" is too slow, too unwieldy, too self-conscious. That's why they call timeouts in football to make the opposing kicker "think about it." Thinking re-directs attention inward, and we lose our vital focus.

When we write, when we make love, when we play an instrument--all of these are moments when total, focused attention can be attained. But it is not easy these days. We are living in a world in which "multi-tasking" is expected (read: fragmented and divided attention). The result is a cheapening of everything we do. Only with focused energy and attention do we reach the state of creative mindfulness that makes satisfying activity possible. So we are unhappy, hurrying from one task to another, thinking of what we should have done yesterday or ought to finish today or could be doing tomorrow if we just FINISH whatever we are working on now. What is the big deal about FINISHING? As soon as we finish, we start again. As I tell my wife when she is frustrated with the chaos created by our kids, we clean up so we can make a new mess to clean up again. So what's so special about that one moment when a project is done and another one can begin. Aren't all the moments of work in our lives equally satisfying (or boring, if we are not paying attention and making meaning in the work)?

So today I resolve to pay attention to everything I do, to everything my kids say, and to my own rhythms. We'll think about tomorrow later . . . :-)