George Clark, 28 November 2008
Most people's attention dives about all over the place. Their focus does not stay the same for more than a few moments. They are easily distracted by sights, sounds, tastes, smells or touches from the outside and by all manner of thoughts, feelings and emotions that emerge in a constant stream from the inside. Such people experience a lot of mental chatter over which they do not feel they have any control.
Some people can focus their attention. Artists can be in flow, athletes can be in the zone and ordinary people can be absorbed in washing the dishes. The key to this state of one-pointed attention is to be non-egoic and outside of space and time - to be absent-minded. The experience is of a kind of effortless action – 'the poem wrote itself'. There is little mental chatter, and 'control' seems to rest with something deeper than the everyday 'self'.
At a deeper level everybody can, but few people do, experience the fearless peace that passes all understanding. There can be flashes of deeper understanding when faced with a glorious sunset. Such moments, for most people, are short-lived and relatively rare. But they can become a much more substantial and soul enhancing part of the living experience.
The undisciplined mind is easily distracted but the disciplined mind is not. The ultimate goal is to shut down conscious, egoic thinking and thus to allow the wisdom of the inner self to make its presence felt. Discipline involves making time for peaceful stillness, time to just sit, time to be still and know. With enough practice the mental mud settles and nothing remains but a mild awareness of 'stuff' on the margins of the attention centre. With even more practice even these faint traces pass away and there is a state of being awake and aware but without 'content'. This is your true home where you are fresh like a flower and solid like a mountain. To take up residence all that is required is dealing with distraction.