Pay Attention to Attention
Everything we experience follows attention. And attention only ever rests in one of two places.
- Some aspect of the me-self
- The awareness in which all phenomena arise
Let's start with the first, since that's where attention spends most of its time. This body housing the concept of me. A me with a name, history, relationships, hopes, dreams, fears, accomplishments, failures, anxieties, and so on. When attention resides in the me, our focus is on whatever the me cares about. Other people, social causes, political outcomes, financial gain, physical health, whatever.
It follows, then, that our peace or joy or contentment hinge on how all those things are going. And so most of our time and effort and energy are spent attempting to improve them.
And as we all know, all too well, it never works. Even when something goes the way we want, it doesn't last. Then we're on to the next conquest. All in an effort to appease the me. As if a contented me were finally possible.
But might we be focused in the wrong place? Might there be another way?
As we read in A Course in Miracles:
Seek not outside yourself. For all your pain comes simply from a futile search for what you want, insisting where it must be found. What if it is not there?
Shift attention from the me-self to the awareness in which it all arises, and something remarkable becomes clear. Nothing there needs improving. Nothing there was ever lacking. The me goes right on wanting, but the one watching it want has no needs whatsoever.
That's the whole practice. Pay attention to attention. Not to fix where it landed. Only to see where it is.