In last week’s post, I asked you to notice where your attention goes. Knowing how your attention is hijacked and when it’s deliberate. Knowing that it can be redirected. Where your attention goes determines your life, so it’s important to place it in the direction of what you care about most. The next step is to examine how you pay attention - the quality of your gaze.
In Sight and Sensibility, Laura Sewall describes attention as the joining of inner and outer landscapes. In other words, attention is how we connect with the world around us. Thomas Merton, the contemplative monk, was the master of attention, according to Robert Waldron in his book of the same name. Merton 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. 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 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 tree, it’s type, size, colour, health, etc. It’s an objective look, like Mary Oliver’s report. There may be some appreciation, but no real feeling there.
The long look sees with the heart, meaning we’re affected by what we see. 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.
Taking the long look can be sublime (watching the sun set) or searing (seeing an act of violence). These are extreme examples, but we can practice this type of seeing 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 sustained attention to something or someone without judgment is the highest form of love.
Practice
This experience of pure, direct seeing begins with the senses and is always available to us. We don’t need to be in an exotic place. We can literally change the way we see by the direction and quality of our attention. See if you can experience that long look this week, one that is self-forgetting, seeing with eyes of love or compassion or empathy. Here are two types of attentional practice, as described by Tara Brach in her book, True Refuge.
Narrowly-focused attention is about single point focus, observing something or someone closely.
Practice observing an object closely, for at least 15 minutes. You can try this with something 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 what you see or take photographs or simply observe. Let any judgments go. See it as it is in this moment. 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. Note: You could do this with the same object every day or a different one every day.
Spend 15 minutes observing a person. They could be someone familiar and dear to you or a stranger in the coffee shop. Again, let go of any judgments and see them as they are, a human being always in the process of becoming, just like you.
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. Take everything in and then let it go as it moves out of view. Squint your eyes and take in the shapes and colours that make up the entire space. How does this change the way you see this view?
While going for a walk outside or even in your house, notice how you’re enveloped in the scene, just one part of the whole. Take in the sights, sounds, smells. Taste the air. Touch surfaces. Be a receptive participant. Notice what calls your attention and then let it go. Maybe the sound of a stream or a flower blooming. You could pick up a piece of litter you find on the ground and say hello to everyone you pass. Who or what needs you to notice? This is where Merton’s long look (self-forgetting) comes in. By self-forgetting, Merton means adopting a “we” rather than “me” mentality.
What do you discover that you wouldn’t have without that long look? How does it feel to take the time for a long look?
Resources
Mary Oliver on Attention via Brian Pickings
Attention as Experience by Dan Nixon via Aeon
Daron Larson offers Attentional Fitness
Books mentioned in this project can be found here.
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We are back in lockdown here in Ontario, so my days are pretty much like the movie Groundhog Day, very much the same and confined to home and neighbourhood. So, I’ve been practicing paying more attention to the little things I do every day and take for granted.
Drinking water is one. I’ve been trying to remember to drink a full glass before every meal, noticing how good it tastes and how it makes my body feel better almost immediately. I’m lucky to have clean water to drink and it makes me think of places and people who don’t have clean water, even in my own country.
Today, I took a long look at my socks. My sister knit them for me and they’re warm and comfy for these January days. Besides that, they’re beautifully designed with different shades of blue. I’m not a knitter so I marvel at the time and care that went into making them. I sent her a picture and text to say how much I appreciate them.
Earlier this week I read about the book ‘Our World,’ and Mary Oliver’s relationship with her partner, photographer Mary Malone Cook. Oliver, known for her keen sense of observation, realizes there is more to observation than reportage:
“It has frequently been remarked, about my own writings, that I emphasize the notion of attention. This began simply enough: to see that the way the flicker flies is greatly different from the way the swallow plays in the golden air of summer. It was my pleasure to notice such things, it was a good first step. But later, watching M. when she was taking photographs, and watching her in the darkroom, and no less watching the intensity and openness with which she dealt with friends, and strangers too, taught me what real attention is about. Attention without feeling, I began to learn, is only a report. An openness — an empathy — was necessary if the attention was to matter.”
That last sentence is an epiphany for me; that attention isn’t just reportage; it’s deeper and thus can be more fulfilling if you’re open to it. Remarkable.