Put Your Attention on Attention

Is there something you can do?

Yes, there is. But only right now, in real time. It all begins and ends right now. You can’t practice something now, or learn something now, hoping that it will affect your future in a positive way. There is no future. So whatever you do, it has to be now or never.

So what can you do NOW?

It’s so easy. It’s so simple. And there is not another thing you need to learn or know to do it. There is no “truth” to be sought that will help you do this. There is no more spiritual growth needed to do it, no more “heart opening” needed to do it. Not one more satsang, not one more teacher, can possibly add anything to your ability to do this. Nothing is needed to do it.

Here it is: Pay attention to attention itself. That’s all this is.

It is the practice of – right now, in the immediate present – turning your attention 180 degrees from the outer world, and aiming it inward, to put attention on the attention itself. All that is needed is to put current attention on the attention itself, and to ignore the rest. Actually, you don’t even need to ignore the rest: when you put attention on attention itself, “the rest” disappears. It just isn’t there.

It’s not like you don’t know what attention I’m talking about. If I say, put your attention on your heartbeat, you wouldn’t think to ask me what attention I mean. We all know “attention” intimately, as if it is our right arm. This is really what we mean when we are talking about ordinary, everyday awareness. Awareness is attention.

Putting attention on attention itself is the opposite of what you are usually doing, by habit. You usually pay attention only to the content – the thoughts, feelings, objects, people, activities – and not to the fact that you have attention at all. This is an inward, not outward, attention. This is attentiveness to attention, not to objects or thoughts, bodies or minds.

“Turning inward” is not what we have believed all these years. We thought it meant: look at your thoughts, your feelings, what makes you tick. Not true. Thoughts and feelings are found by looking outward. Everything that “appears” is found by looking outward. Turning inward means literally to look at what is looking. It means looking at attention itself.

Notice right now that when attention rests on the simple attention that is being given to these words, there is stillness. Not attention to the words themselves, but attention to the attention that makes them noticeable. When current attention moves away from itself, and turns outward, then these words appear; the self, the body, the thoughts, and the world appear, and all the suffering that is borne in these things. These things appear to you when you put attention on them. They don’t have to appear at all. Keep attention on itself, and nothing ever appears.

Why does it seem hard to put the attention on the attention? It’s because your mind will instantly and immediately reject attention, because attention has no qualities.  So don’t try and do this with your mind. Just put attention back, on the attention itself, where it started. You will notice the mind disappears.

Nothing else is needed. No activity is needed to make this better, because when attention is on attention, there is no activity.  All activity, objects, bodies, and egos appear only when you put attention on them.

Do you see why there are those who say, Just look now and be done? Now, when you look – when you put the attention inward, on the attention itself, and not outward, on the objects in attention – is there anything? Can you find “I” in there? Can you even find a body, or a mind? Can you find suffering? Can you find a seeker? So if you can’t find one now, was there ever one? What was all your seeking about?

You don’t have to do self-inquiry. Self-inquiry implies looking with a mind, in a mind, to see if you can find the origin and seat of the “I,” and finding there is nothing there but a bunch of thoughts. You don’t have to do all that. Look inward, at attention itself, and it is immediately clear that there is no “I” and there never was one. It’s all clear right now, and every time you look.

You don’t have to sit and meditate on this. This is a walking/working non-meditation. It is part of your day. As you walk around, doing your chores, doing your job, chatting with people, turn your attention to attention itself. What happens?

Do it now, do it once, and you’ll never need to be convinced again. It is immediately seen that you and the world do not exist. Nothing is but This, Itself.

And you are This!