Attentiveness is a commonly used word and is something
that forms the bare bones of our practice, regardless of which model we use. I
intend to break the word down and provide a practical description of what
attentiveness “is”, and how to improve practice through really understanding
what it means to be attentive. This is just my take on it based on what works,
and is working, for me; this may change as new information becomes available.
The Word
Attentiveness describes the act of paying attention to an
object; to be “attentive” is to be engaged in the act of paying attention; “attention”
is defined as “the act or faculty of attending” [1], faculty being “an
ability, natural or acquired, for a particular kind of action” [2]. Since we all have this ability naturally rather than having to acquire it, as
is apparent simply by noticing that you’re sitting reading this post right now,
it’s just a case of recognizing this “particular kind of action” occurring in
real-time and learning how to utilize it effectively.
Some common synonyms for the word “attentive” include:
heedful, aware, alert, and, perhaps most interestingly given the context of
this piece, mindful [3]. In short, to be attentive is to be
heedful, aware or mindful of whatever is occurring at any given moment. For the
sake of clarity, I’d like to briefly analyze the word “mindfulness” since,
given what we know already about attentiveness and based on my own practice, I
posit that it is identical in operation and produces the same phenomenological
results; there will likely be some who immediately disagree based on comments
made by the founder of the AFT, or consider these correlations to be the
product of “my” efforts to force-fit the language of one model with another. I
am trying to present this in as clear terms as possible so as to avoid any
ambiguity or bias towards any one model, and am also providing these breakdowns
of the words to clarify the way in which I use and understand them.
The word “mindful” is an adjective meaning “attentive,
aware, or careful (usually followed by of)” [4] or “conscious or aware of something “[5][6]. We’ve already looked
at “attentive” and found that it’s synonymous with words like “mindful”,
“heedful”, “aware” and “alert”, all of which represent the same process: To be
attentive of something; to be paying attention; to be aware. It does not require any further analysis to
demonstrate that mindfulness and attentiveness are simply labels for the same,
naturally occurring ability to pay attention.
What is this “naturally occurring ability to pay
attention” and how does it happen?
The Process
Attentiveness is occurring right now as I sit here
writing this; as my eyes scan the screen I’m able to simultaneously notice the
sound of my fingers on the keyboard, the television in the background, and the
sound of traffic outside. I’m also aware of what’s going on ‘internally’ and
can notice thoughts arising by themselves, the way I mentally verbalize these
words as I edit this paragraph and consider whether it’s an accurate
description or not; a reflection based on the way that I understand the words
I’m using and whether or not others will understand them in the same way. All
of this can be observed occurring without effort, but the simplicity of
attentiveness is what makes it difficult for some to perceive.
Attentiveness is just a matter of noticing what’s
happening right now, you’re not looking for anything or trying to do anything,
you’re just noticing what’s already happening at this moment. It’s an active
engagement in your immediate experience, an alertness, a preparedness to openly
accept whatever arises without judgement. This attentiveness includes what’s
going on” internally” - by which I mean: the general feelings observed,
emotional states, thoughts that present themselves, particular narratives the
mind reels off; mental phenomena in general - as well as what’s going on “externally”
- by which I mean: physical sensations via the five sense doors: touch, sight,
sound, taste, and smell. Attentiveness only ever happens right now, not in the future and not in the past, now. Not then.
Only now. To be attentive or mindful is to be actively present; to be cognizant
of what is happening at this moment in time.
So, why is it that the vast majority of people aren’t
actively engaged in simply being aware, particularly when there are so many
benefits to be found in doing so?
The Problem
The way our minds usually function involves a continual
push-pull between past, present and future, only spending fleeting moments
actually being here. When we’re not occupied with thoughts like “what am I
going to do when I finish what I’m doing right now?”, we’re occupied with
thoughts like “why isn’t what I’m doing right now as good as that thing I was
doing before?”. We’re rarely here now, which may sound clichéd but is easy
enough to verify as accurate in our own experience; we’re either fretting over
what might happen in some not-occurring-right-now future, or worrying about what’s
already happened in, or may occur due to, some not-occurring-right-now event in
the past.
To complicate matters further, we then identify with
those thoughts and narratives, consider them to be “my” thoughts, “my” stories
about what’s going to happen to “me”; we have feelings about those mental phenomena which give rise to this sense of “me”
in the first place and around we go again ad infinitum. All of these,
relatively[7] subtle, automatic processes, that we’re not usually aware of, are part of what
leads to a lack of attentiveness. The noticing of them is the first step to
seeing them clearly, and once they’re seen clearly they can be let go of via
further attentiveness and investigation. What’s happening now is what counts, what might happen or what’s already happened
are never occurring right now so thoughts of them can be acknowledged and let
go of. This is not to say that reflection on what’s gone before or planning for
what may come are not necessary; regardless of whether you’re “awakened” or
“not” you still need to be able to function skilfully in the real-world.
Aside from the natural inclination of our minds towards
this dynamic and dualistic process of identification, there’s also the issue of
effort, of having to do something to be attentive in the first place. If we can
see how being attentive, present and aware allows life to be far more pleasant
and clearly, fully experienced then we can find ways to incorporate it in fun,
interesting and engaging ways; when we can have fun while learning, we can
optimize our ability to take on board information. While attentiveness can
become automatic with enough effort and practice, it requires a kickstart for
the mind to be able to recognize it; it seems paradoxical that something
effortless should require effort to become what it already is, yet it’s one of
those things that really need to be experienced to be understood fully.
The Basics
There are lots of ways you can kickstart attentiveness,
whether it’s asking yourself “How Am I Experiencing This Moment of Being Alive”
(also known as HAIETMOBA) or just noticing that you’re annoyed by something on
the television; it comes down to being aware of what you’re experiencing, both
“internally” and “externally” at any given moment. As far as what we’re
supposed to be aware of, the list
could go on for pages, but we can describe a (very) basic framework to start
from and you’re then free to explore, add, amend or discard whatever helps your
own practice. Essentially we’re looking at the six points of sense contact,
a.k.a. “sense doors” a.k.a. the senses and what sort of information they can
‘take in’:
Eyes = Sight (Visual)
Ears = Hearing (Auditory)
Nose = Smell (Olfactory)
Tongue = Taste (Gustatory)
Skin/Muscle = Touch/Movement (Tactile/Kinesthetic)
‘Mind’ = Thought/A
label for mental faculties in general.
These are our six points of sense contact, in which I’m
also including the submodalities of each e.g. with regards to sight, we can
talk about light, colour and form; distinctions discernible within the
experience of “seeing”. How each of the senses can be further investigated will
be of more interest to us later in the discussion, but for the moment we’ll go
back to basics and strip the practice to it’s bare bones.
The Details
As we’ve already seen, to be attentive is to be aware...but aware of what? Your experience at
this moment as it happens! And how do you
do that? By noticing what’s happening! Is
it really that simple? Yes! Simply notice that you’re already aware of at
least one aspect of your current experience, whether it’s the sensation of a
warm breeze against your cheek or the memory of dinner with a friend, whatever
is happening in your body and/or mind is what to be aware of. Something quite
cool about attentiveness is that it’s got a built-in feedback mechanism; once
you learn how to recognize it, you can quickly see when you’re no longer being
attentive which immediately brings you back to where you want to be: Present,
mindful, aware and cognizant of how you feel inside and out; from your
emotional state to the itch on your foot, it’s all made of the same stuff and
is worthy of being investigated. With practice, you can begin to dismantle and
investigate these feelings and sensations but, for the moment, I’m going to
stick to the practice of attentiveness itself rather than insight.
Once you can be aware of one sensation, you can begin to
expand that ‘field’ of attention to include other sensations like sounds,
touch, sights, and so on; notice how each of these “sense consciousness”
happens of its own accord, they occur when an object makes contact with them
and don’t require any effort on your part. It’s a fascinating thing to do, just
noticing how your experience of the world is being constructed in real-time and
how incredible the human brain and nervous system are; the ever-changing,
chaotic blast of information that makes up “reality” is received, decoded, and
interpreted by this organism to create this experience of the world...and “I”
am not involved in any way, shape or form. Literally.
You can also look further into the various submodalities
which make up the overall “object” being perceived by this implied “subject”.
For example, in the instant of touch there are myriad sensations which make up
that particular conceptual label, “touch”; we can (ap)perceive temperature,
pressure, texture/pattern, etc. each of which can then be broken down ad
absurdum if you’re so inclined. There is a kaleidoscopic range of sensory
delight available right now, ever changing and never static, simply by paying
more attention to your experience; notice more, look closer and see just how
multi-faceted a jewel (ap)perception is.
In terms of what we’ll call “internal” sensations, by
which I mean mental movements, thoughts, conceptualizing, and anything of a
not-solely-physical-sense-based variety, the selection of what can be attended
to is pretty much endless. What’s useful is not to get involved in the content,
simply notice them and see how they appear, fade and vanish by themselves to be
replaced by something else. With further practice, you can also dismantle and
investigate these states in the same way as you would with any other sensation.
It’s all fair game, the point is (if such a thing can even be said!) that
you’re attentive to what’s happening in your immediate experience right now.
Once you can be attentive effortlessly, practice being more attentive to even more of your experience; there is no end to how attentive you can be but it can only
happen right now.
Practical
Suggestions
I’ve already mentioned the Actualism technique of asking
yourself “HAIETMOBA?” and recognizing emotional states, but it’s possible to
use a variety of techniques to improve your practice of attentiveness.
-
Thich Nhat Hanh talks about mindfully doing the
dishes in one of his books; how you’re doing them just to be doing them (being
attentive of being alive right now), not purely to get them done (being
otherwise focused on some future event). This sort of everyday activity is
ideal for practicing attentiveness, exploring the complex interplay of
sensations, this “dance of creation” that is sensate experience means that
there’s never any reason to be bored; there is always something to be aware of
and this is where we can begin practicing properly.
-
Taking a cue from my personal favourite, the
batshit mental but never dull, Aleister Crowley, choose a word, for example
“I”, and try to delete it from your speech for a predefined period of time;
should you transgress this self-imposed limitation, Uncle Al would have you cut
yourself with a razor, however Bob Wilson suggests the less masochistic, but
equally effective, biting your thumb. While this practice is aimed more at
gaining control of speech, the basic technique can be used as a ‘goad’ for attentiveness.
My own preference was to use an elastic band to “ping” my wrist . It’s discreet
enough to be unnoticeable, but it hurts enough to get you back to being
attentive.
- G.I. Gurdjieff would have people notice their entire
experience when they did things like walking through a doorway, and in fact it
was this particular technique which allowed me to understand what the guy was
talking about. He called it “self-observation” but the practice of it, in my
experience, is phenomenologically the same as being mindful or attentive within
other models.[8] Using external objects as triggers for becoming attentive is
incredibly useful, they’re always available and can be changed to suit wherever
you are; anything which allows you to simply remind yourself to notice your
experience will work. Some examples from my own practice include: Noticing when
going through doorways, setting an alarm to go off every five minutes or some
other period of time, writing down the word “notice” on my notepad in work and
remembering to do so each time I see it, noticing every time I check my
phone...the list goes on, it all comes down to what works for you and reminds
you to be attentive right now.
-
When you’re sitting on the train or bus and
listening to music, notice all the different elements of the sounds you hear.
Look at how you can hear all the different instrumentation, the pitch and tone
of sounds, how long each lasts and how attention seems to move between each
part; feel the vibration of the air as it makes contact with the eardrum, it’s subtle
but discernible; look at your emotional reaction to the sounds, how feelings
and thinking can change based on, for example, the lyrics, key or tempo of the
music. Don’t get involved in the content, just observe how things are at that
moment and how they change. This can be applied in a similar way to things like
watching movies, reading books, or engaging in any sort of entertainment
whatsoever as long as it leads you to be mindful, attentive or aware of your
immediate experience via the “sense doors”.
-
Be actively engaged in your experience, aware
and full of wonder, enthusiastically enjoying what you’re doing. This practice
is truly enjoyable in it’s beginning, middle and end..
Hopefully this brief breakdown and analysis of
attentiveness will allow people to improve their practice, understand what
attentiveness “is” and how it works in real terms. I’ll make it clear again
that this is simply a reflection of my current understanding and is subject to
change at any time, these are my attempts at describing the basics of the
practice itself without reference to any particular conceptual map of the
territory involved. Just real-life, phenomenological details from my own
experience which may be of use to others.
- Tommy
[3] Controversy and accusations of plagiarism aside, the
fact that Richard, the spectacularly bearded founder of the Actualism method,
chose to help himself to some of Bhante Gunaratana’s “Mindfulness in Plain
English” for his “Attentiveness, Sensuousness and Apperceptiveness” article is
something I find fascinating. It could well prove to be a useful point of
agreement to work from when trying to discuss how the AF Model can be lined up
with “spiritual” models of experience. I am unable to find any evidence to
suggest that the territory Richard has ‘discovered’ is unique to him, although
the model/ filter/view/map through which his experience is being related in
written word does seem unique to his oft-mentioned “flesh and blood body”.
Don’t misunderstand me here, I agree with Richard to a point but I think
there’s still value in a re-reading, with the clarity of actuality and a
willingness to question our assumptions about language, the writings and maps
of other traditions with the idea that they too were trying to describe
actuality. Then again, I could just be finding evidence to support my current
“reality tunnel” and purposely excluding information which contradicts my
current point-of-view; an opinion and nothing more.
[7] Relative to the everyday consciousness of those not
already investigating such things.
[8] Please note, I am not trying to equate G.I.
Gurdjieff’s approach with anything else, I don’t understand enough of it and my
experience with it is minimal. I only mention him so as to attribute the
technique to it’s inventor, however some
of the techniques he uses, and the “self-observation” thing in particular, do
bear similarities to the bare-bones processes of other models.
