May I have your time and attention?

Essay #5

Two Books

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and writing about and practicing what it means to live a contemplative life. And, I’ve written about attention many times, particularly in terms of what blocks our attention and how we can redirect it. For this essay, I wanted to focus on the quality of attention. 

At the same time, I was reading two books that helped me to synthesize my thoughts on this topic. The first is Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell and the second is To Photograph is to Learn How to Die by Time Carpenter (links at the end). I highly recommend both.

Saving Time may sound like the multitude of time management books you can find in any bookstore but that is not at all what this book is about. Rather, it’s about literally saving time from its predominant meaning - that time is linear, time is money, time is scarce, and that we need to be productive every minute. This is called clock time, or chronos in Greek, and it’s only one way of experiencing time. Odell delves into the history of how this meaning became the gold standard.

She argues that it’s usually not clock time that gives us experiences of meaning and purpose. Our best experiences often happen when we forget about time completely. The Greek word for when time stops is called kairos. These are gaps in time that are ripe for creativity, new possibilities or opportunities. They can be moments of wonder and gratitude or they can also be moments of tragedy, of fear or sadness. We remember these times much more clearly than we do when we’re on the clock. 

To Photograph is to Learn How to Die is a deeply philosophical book about what it means to live fully and how the camera is a tool to help us do so. Carpenter talks a lot about the creative process and the need to be aware of when the ego gets in the way of this process. He entertains ways to navigate life and how to see possibilities in each moment.

Both books are about how to live a meaningful life in this time and space, which requires both quality time and quality attention. Let’s talk about each.

The Quality of Time

“How you spend your days is how you spend your life.” ~ Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

One of my favorite places to be is at the edge of any body of water. It's the ultimate sensory experience - witnessing that great expanse of water, hearing the rhythmic sounds of waves, smelling and tasting and touching the water. One year when I was at the ocean, I was re-reading Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s classic book, Gift from the Sea, for the umpteenth time and the quote below struck me in a whole new way. 

“The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach – waiting for a gift from the sea.”

As I watched the waves coming in and going back out, I noticed that they do both at the same time. As water is pulled back into the sea, a new wave is coming in over top of it. It’s a never-ending cycle. I saw, for the first time, that the edge – where water meets land – is where the sea literally deposits treasures at our feet and then eventually takes them back out again. They’re easily missed if one is not paying attention. You have to catch them at the right time. 

This is what I’ve been practicing over the past few years, noticing the treasures that come into my life and either appreciating them and letting them go or acting on them while they’re available to me. I’ve learned that the best treasures - opportunities and experiences - often come to me by chance (the subject of my last essay), rather than me seeking them. For example, being asked to do a contemplative photography workshop while attending a workshop on the contemplative poetry of Mary Oliver and Thomas Merton. I seized the opportunity and this led to the workshops I’ve created over the past ten plus years. People I’ve met along the way have often ended up being future collaborators.

This isn’t a passive way of being. Rather, it’s about being actively alert and engaged, having a conversation with reality, and then following up when you notice those moments of resonance. This is kairos time, noticing what’s in those gaps. Treasures are everywhere, just waiting to be acknowledged. 

Now, treasures imply something positive yet sometimes what’s dropped in front of you might be anything but. Of course, positive or negative are value judgments and each could be turned on its head. You have to deal with what you’re dealt. It’s what you do with them that counts.

The Quality of Attention

So, how do we pay attention so that we don’t miss the treasures? The contemplative monk, Thomas Merton, and poet Mary Oliver, are considered to be masters of attention. Merton, who was also a photographer, said, “There are degrees of attention: the glance, the cursory look, the look, the long look, (self-forgetting, therefore contemplative)” 

The glance is what we do most often, when what is seen barely registers, either because it’s considered unimportant or we’re lost in thought, or we’re in a hurry - on clock time. On the other hand, a glance can also be quite intimate if it’s reciprocated.

The cursory look is when what we see registers and is quickly named, for example, you walk by a tree and acknowledge that you saw a tree. But you didn’t really see that particular tree.

The look lingers a little longer. We may take in the uniqueness of a particular person or object or place, its type, size, color, health, etc. It’s an objective look. There may be some appreciation, but no real feeling there yet. 

The long look sees with the heart, meaning we’re affected by what we see. Taking the long look can be sublime (watching the sun set) or searing (seeing an act of violence). There is an encounter. We’re completely immersed in the moment, in the relationship. This is what Merton calls self-forgetting, therefore contemplative. Poet and writer David Whyte says that self-forgetfulness is the essence of firsthand experience. 

We can practice this type of quality attention every day with the things or people in our lives that have become all too familiar such that we barely see them anymore, or we see them through a lens of the past. Like deep listening, to truly offer your full attention to something or someone without judgment is the highest form of love. 

What if we were to be more conscious of where and how we place our attention? What if we were to eliminate what doesn’t matter and focus on what does? What if we were just fully attentive to whatever we were doing? You already know what matters to you and how to pay attention but I’ll share a few ideas with you below to get you started. 

Practices of Time and Attention 

Most practices you’ll find online have to do with engaging your senses (body) and emotions (heart), and noticing how your mind operates, and can sometimes get in the way. 

Our experiences in the world begin with the five physical senses, yet we often aren’t very conscious of the experience of these senses. I’ve learned that when I bring more conscious awareness to my senses, I see more and savor life more fully. Sights and smells and sounds, tastes and textures, are a feast of presence and a way to connect with the world outside of the mind.

You hear a lot of advice today, especially in social media circles, to pay attention to your intuition. This is the wisdom of the body, often called our internal sixth sense, and it does play an important role. Yet, it’s not as mystical or magical as it sounds and it can often be wrong. Basically, your unique intuition is based on patterns related to the past, and these patterns are held in the body. They may or may not apply to the current situation. It’s important to check your intuition with reason, understand the source, and discern how it may be different from the present. 

Seeing with the heart is the way we connect deeply with others. Emotions move and flow as the body’s regulator. They come and go in waves so it’s best just to notice and let them flow. Emotions can provide important messages. I’ve learned to notice when my anxiety level has increased more than normal. Usually my stomach tells me! Deep breathing and meditation help, as well as walks in the woods. Checking news or Facebook doesn’t, for me at least. 

Our mind is another amazing resource that allows us to make sense of things but it can also get in the way of truly seeing what’s really happening and what’s needed. Notice how your mind affects your experience. What is it attracted to? What is it rejecting? What judgments are you making? These I call obstacles to seeing because they eliminate possibilities. Take that long look instead, being open and humble enough to realize you may be missing something important. These are your blindspots, things that are there but we can’t, or choose not to, see them. Either they’re outside of our field of vision or they’re overlooked due to inattention. 

There are two types of attention you can practice  - narrowly focusing on one thing or a wider, hovering attention that takes in everything equally. Each requires openness, humility, kindness, engagement of the senses, and a forgetting of self. In her book, True Refuge, author Tara Brach offers ways to work with each of the types of attention. 

Narrowly-focused attention is about single point focus, observing something or someone closely. You can practice observing an object or a being closely, for at least 15 minutes. You can try this with something or someone that you have an attachment to, as well as something with which you have no particular attachment, something ordinary and familiar. Look closely from all angles. Write down what you see or take photographs or simply observe. Let any judgments go. See it as it is at this moment. What surprises you? What do you see that you hadn’t noticed before? Can you see the past and future in it as well? For example, with a blooming flower you can sense its growth from seed to bud to bloom to decay. Everything is always in the process of becoming.

Here are some other ideas for practice in selective or narrow-focussed attention.

Open-focused attention is about being still, receptive, silent, and present. It’s seeing the whole view with curiosity rather than judgment. Sit in a place where you can get a panoramic view, whether at a park or inside your home looking out the window. Scan slowly from left to right and right to left. Let go of the tendency to go from object to object or person to person. Take everything in and then let it go as it moves out of view. Squint your eyes and take in the shapes and colors that make up the entire space. How does this change the way you see? 

Here’s another exercise for open-focussed attention. 

Here’s an exercise for a walk, adapted from Meg Salter’s book, Mind Your Life, which helps to cultivate three fundamental attentional skills: concentration or selective attention, sensory clarity, and equanimity (allowing sensory experiences to come and go).

Conclusion 

Writer and yogi Mary Paterson spent forty days at Thich Knat Hanh’s Plum Village Monastery in France and wrote about the experience in her book, The Monks and Me. One day Thich Knat Hanh asked them, “What are you doing?”  He said that this was the only question they needed to ask themselves to know if they were fully engaged in their lives. He was really asking, “How are you spending your time?”

Through my photography journey, I evolved from seeing objects to seeing light, lines, and finally, to the relationships between all of them. To me, life is all about the quality of our relationships and how we navigate our daily encounters. The conclusion I’ve come to is that how we spend our time and how we pay attention makes all the difference. 

Poet Mary Oliver put it most succinctly, “Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” 

How will you spend your time and attention today?

Resources 

Books: Saving Time, To Photograph is to Learn How to Die, Mind Your Life, True Refuge, Sight and Sensibility, Master of Attention

Poetry: Mary Oliver, David Whyte

Daron Larson offers attentional fitness practices online and in-person.