 |
The only way out is through.... |
| November, 2006 |
 |
In the last newsletter I wrote about relaxed attention – the kind of awareness that is alert but not forced. Using it in meditation we don’t try to figure things out, instead we simply observe, listen and receive. In this newsletter we consider focused attention – the kind of awareness that is both alert and willed. It also has an important place in meditation.
Using focused attention we will ourselves to find the time and the place for a meditation practice. And we put in the effort to learn the meditation posture. We also use focused attention to choose the object of a particular meditation, perhaps the breath or the flow of internal talk. And when we loose touch with that object we use focused attention to find it again.
One time, when the Buddha was alive, he observed a student of his working very hard at meditating – perhaps too hard. Since this student was known to be a musician, the Buddha asked him a seemingly irrelevant question – “how do you tune your lute?” In a moment of great insight, the musician replied, not too tight and not too loose.
As you become an experienced meditator you realize that relaxed attention
and focused attention complement each other. Using the “tighter”
focused attention you gain clarity and discernment; using the “looser”
relaxed attention you experience the undifferentiated larger whole. We
need both.
