[NonDualPhil] Bare AttentionPCE

[Guest guest]

Nisargadatta , " pliantheart " <pliantheart

wrote:

>

> > Buddhist meditation takes everyday mind

> > as its natural starting point, and it

> > requires the development of one

> > particular attentional posture -- of

> > naked, or bare, attention.

> >

> > Defined as:

> > " the clear and single-minded awareness of

> > what actually happens to us and in us at the

> > successive moments of perception, " bare

> > attention takes this unexamined mind and opens

> > it up, not by trying to change anything but by

> > observing the mind, emotions, and body the

> > way they are.

> >

> > It is 'the' fundamental tenet

> > of Buddhist psychology that this kind of

> > attention is, in itself, healing: that by

> > constant application of this attentional

> > strategy, all of the Buddha's insights can

> > be realized for oneself.

> >

> >

> > As mysterious as the literature on meditation

> > can seem, as elusive as the koans of the

> > Zen master sometimes sound, there is but one

> > underlying instruction that is critical to

> > Buddhist thought.

> >

> >

> > Common to all schools of

> > thought, from Sri Lanka to Tibet, the unifying

> > theme of the Buddhist approach is this

> > remarkable imperative: " Pay precise attention,

> > moment by moment, to exactly what you are

> > experiencing, right now, separating out your

> > reactions from the raw sensory events. " This

> > is what is meant by bare attention: just the

> > 'bare' facts, an 'exact' registering, allowing

> > things to speak for themselves as if seen for

> > the first time, distinguishing any reactions

> > from the core event.

> >

> >

> >

> > DIMINISHING REACTIVITY

> >

> > In this attentional strategy that is followed

> > throughout the meditative path. It is both the

> > beginning practice and the culminating one:

> > only the objects of awareness change.

> > Beginning with the in and out breath, proceeding

> > to bodily sensations, feelings, thoughts,

> > consciousness, and finally the felt sense of I,

> > meditation requires the application of bare

> > attention to increasingly subtle phenomena.

> > Culminating in a state of 'choiceless awareness'

> > in which the categories of " observer " and that

> > which is observed " are no longer operational,

> > bare attention eventually obviates self-consciousness

> > and permits thekind of spontaneity that has long

> > intrigued the psychologically minded observers of

> > Eastern practices. This is the spontaneity that

> > Western psychologists confuse with a true self idea.

> > From the Buddhist perspective, such authentic actions

> > leap forth from the clear perception of bare attention;

> > there is no need to posit an intermediate agent who

> > performs them.

> >

> > The key to the transformational potential of bare

> > attention lies in the deceptively simple injunction

> > to separate out one's reactions from the core events

> > themselves. Much of the time, it turns out, our

> > everyday minds are in a state of reactivity. We

> > take this for granted, we do not question our automatic

> > identifications with our reactions, and we experience

> > ourselves at the mercy of an often hostile or

> > frustrating outer world or an overwhelming or

> > frightening inner one.

> >

> > With bare attention, we move from this automatic

> > identification our fear or frustration to a vantage

> > point form which the fear or frustration is attended

> > to with same dispassionate interest as anything else.

> >

> > There is enormous freedom to be gained from such

> > a shift. Instead of running from difficult

> > emotions (or hanging on to enticing ones), the

> > practitioner of bare attention becomes able to

> > 'contain' any reaction; making space for it, but

> > not completely identifying with it because of the

> > concomitant presence of nonjudgmental awareness.

> >

> > ...........

> >

> > One famous Japanese haiku illustrates this state.

> > It is one that Joseph Goldstein has long used to

> > describe the unique attentional posture of bare

> > attention:

> >

> >

> > The old pond.

> > A frog jumps in.

> > Plop!

> >

> >

> > Like so much else in Japanese art, the poem

> > expresses the Buddhist emphasis on naked attention

> > to the often overlooked details of everyday life.

> > Yet, there is another level at which the poem

> > may be read. Just as in the parable of the raft,

> > the waters of the pond can represent the mind and

> > the emotions. The frog jumping in becomes a thought

> > or feeling arising in the mind or body, while

> > " Plop! " represents the reverberations of that

> > thought or feeling, unelaborated by the forces of

> > reactivity. The entire poem comes to evoke the

> > state of bare attention in its utter simplicity.

> >

> > from the book " Thoughts without a Thinker "

> > by Mark Epstein, M.D.

> >

>

> Wow...

> my philosophy in a nutshell.

> So clean and simply stated.

>

> Bill

>

 

 

Your?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

....