ATTENTION / AWARENESS

Related States & Conditions | Syntonic | Dystonic

Consciousness has no origin and is an illusion arising from the six organs and sense data … Ignorant worldlings think wrongly that it is causal, conditional and due to the self as such, according to the way their consciousnesses differentiate and discriminate while they do not know that the language they use has no real meaning.
Buddha
c. 563-483 BCE, Indian Prince, Mystic, Founder of Buddhism
Surangama Sutra , Upasaka Lu K'uan Yu (Charles Luk), tr., 1966

Attention is living; inattention is dying.
The attentive never stop; the inattentive are dead already.
Buddha
Dhammapada , 21, Thanissaro Bhikkhu, tr.

Unawareness is the root of all evil.
- Unknown Egyptian Monk

You are neither earth, water, fire, air or even ether. For liberation know yourself as consisting of consciousness, the witness of these. If only you will remain resting in consciousness, seeing yourself as distinct from the body, then even now you will become happy, peaceful and free from bonds.
Ashtavakra Gita
Hindu Sacred Text
1.3-4, John Richards, tr.

Oh, how wonderful!
I am awareness itself!
No less!
Ibid.

Nature has given us two ears, two eyes and but one tongue, to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.
Socrates
469-399 BCE, Athenian Philosopher

How many common things are trodden underfoot which, if examined carefully, awaken our astonishment.
Augustine of Hippo
354-430, Numidian Prelate, Theologian, Philosopher, Saint

When not a single thought arises, then true mindfulness is born; this is pure attention. When the celestial potential is suddenly activated in the midst of silent trance, is this not spontaneous attention? This is what is meant by acting without striving.
Lu Tung Pin
798-?, Chinese Chan Master
The Secret of the Golden Flower: The Classic Chinese Book of Life , VIII.30, Thomas Cleary, tr., 1991

If you attain real, true perception and understanding, birth and death don't affect you – you are free to go or stay. You needn't seek wonders, for wonders come of themselves.
Linji Yixuan
d. 867, Chinese Chan Master, Linji (Rinzai) School Founder
in Zen Essence: The Science of Freedom , Thomas Cleary, tr. & ed., 1989

The pure light in a moment of awareness in your mind is the Buddha's essence within you. The nondiscriminating light in a moment of awareness in your mind is the Buddha's wisdom within you. The undifferentiated light in a moment of awareness in your mind is the Buddha's manifestation within you.
Ibid.

When you are deluded and full of doubt, even a thousand books of scripture are still not enough. When you have realized understanding, even one word is already too much.
Fenyang Shanzhao
947-1024, Chinese Chan Master
in Zen Essence: The Science of Freedom , Thomas Cleary, tr. & ed., 1989

A traveller without observation is a bird without wings.
Moslih Eddin Sa'adi
1184-1291, Persian Sufi Poet

Even if you have not awakened, if you realize that your perceptions and activities are all like dreams and you view them with detachment, not giving rise to grasping and rejecting discrimination, then this is virtually tantamount to awakening from the dream.
Muso Kokushi
1275-1351, Japanese Zen Master, Calligrapher, Poet
in Dream Conversations on Buddhism and Zen , Thomas Cleary, tr., 1994

What is this mind?
Who is hearing these sounds?
Do not mistake any state for
Self-realization, but continue
To ask yourself even more
Intensely,
What is it that hears?
Bassui Zenji
1327-1387, Japanese Zen Master

Alertness brings awareness and awareness is a light that in a
Searing flash obliterates all traces of the ghost.
Let your True Nature shine forth in perfect clarity.
Hanshan Deqing
1546-1623, Chinese Chan Master, Scholar, Poet
"Purify Your Mind," Poems by Silly Mountain , Upasaka Richard Cheung, tr.

Absentmindedness is looking for the horse you are riding.
Russian Saying

The true art of memory is the art of attention.
Samuel Johnson
1709-1784, English Lexicographer, Poet, Critic, Essayist

Attention is a tacit and continual compliment.
Madame Swetchine
1782-1857, Russian Writer
The Writings of Madame Swetchine

The secret of a good memory is attention, and attention to a subject depends upon our interest in it. We rarely forget that which has made a deep impression on our minds.
Tryon Edwards
1809-1894, American Theologian

The one serviceable, safe, certain, remunerative, attainable quality in every study and every pursuit is the quality of attention.
Charles Dickens
1812-1870, English Writer
in James Cardinal Gibbons, The Ambassador of Christ

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
Thoreau
1817-1862, American Essayist, Writer, Naturalist

To a great experience one thing is essential, an experiencing nature. It is not enough to have opportunity; it is essential to feel it.
Walter Bagehot
1826-1877, English Economist, Political Philosopher

Grow antennae, not horns.
James Angell
1829-1916, American Educator, Editor, Diplomat

It is delightful to feel that one is wide awake and intelligent. A little self-consciousness here is not offensive.
John Lancaster Spalding
1840-1916, American Catholic Prelate, Educator, Writer
Thoughts and Theories of Life and Education

Everyone is familiar with the phenomenon of feeling more or less alive on different days. Everyone knows on any given day that there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of the day do not call forth, but which he might display if these were greater … Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake.
William James
1842-1910, American Psychologist, Philosopher
"The Energies of Men," Essays on Faith and Morals

Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness.
James
The Varieties of Religious Experience , 1974

One should pay attention to even the smallest crawling creature, for these too may have a valuable lesson to teach us, and even the smallest ant may wish to communicate with a man.
Black Elk
1864-1950, Native American Leader, Oglala Sioux Shaman

Rightly to perceive a thing, in all the fullness of its qualities, is really to create it.
C. E. Montague
1867-1928, British Journalist, Writer
The Right Place

Every scene, even the commonest, is wonderful, if only one can detach oneself, casting off all memory of use and custom and behold it, as it were, for the first time.
Arnold Bennett
1867-1931, English Writer, Dramatist, Journalist
Journal

The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.
Paul Valery
1871-1945, French Poet, Mathematician, Philosopher

Awakening begins when a man realizes that he is going nowhere and does not know where to go.
Gurdjieff
1877-1949, Greek-Armenian Teacher, Writer
in P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous , 1949

To be aware that we are only partially awake is the first condition of becoming and making ourselves more fully awake.
A. R. Orage
1873-1934, English Editor, Writer

Man's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upwards from the unconscious … As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
Carl Jung
1875-1961, Swiss Psychologist, Theorist
Memories, Dreams and Reflections , 1962

When one realises one is asleep, at that moment one is already half-awake.
P. D. Ouspensky
1878-1947, Russian Journalist, Writer, Lecturer

Imagine that you're awake and walking about amongst people who sleep; how can you communicate with them? You realize that they can have no idea about your awareness because they're still sleeping. You used to be like that yourself. But now you are awake.
Hazrat Khan
1882-1927, Indian Sufi Master, Musician
in Vilayat Inayat Khan, Awakening: A Sufi Experience , 1999

What is man's great privilege, his exceptional experience? Consciousness and again consciousness, and it is in a passionate imaginative consciousness our true rewards are to be won.
Llewelyn Powys
1884-1939, English Writer, Essayist
Now That the Gods Are Dead

If there be anything that can be called genius, it consists chiefly in ability to give that attention to a subject which keeps it steadily in the mind, till we have surveyed it accurately on all sides.
Theodor Reik
1888-1969, Austrian/American Psychoanalyst, Writer

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.
Henry Miller
1891-1980, American Writer

The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
Miller

To be fully is to be wholly conscious of one's being: unconsciousness, half consciousness or deficient consciousness is a state of being not in possession of itself; it is existence, but not fullness of being. To be aware wholly or integrally of oneself and of all the truth of one's being is the necessary condition of true possession of existence.
Sri Aurobindo
1892-1950, Indian Guru
Words of Sri Aurobindo , First Series

Let us not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness.
James Thurber
1894-1961, American Humorist, Writer, Dramatist

So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
1895-1986, Indian Philosopher, Writer
You Are the World , 1972

Like the glow-worm; dowdy, minute, passive, yet full of mystery to the poet, and passionate significance to its fellows; so everything and everybody eternally radiate their dim light for those who care to seek. The strawberry hidden under the last leaf cries, "Pick me"; the forgotten book, in the forgotten book shop, screams to be discovered. The old house hidden in the hollow agitates itself violently at the approach of its predestined admirer. Dead authors cry, "Read me"; dead friends cry, "Remember me"; dead ancestors cry, "Unearth me"; dead places, "Revisit me": and sympathetic spirits, living and dead, are trying continually to enter into communion.
Cyril Connolly
1903-1974, English Literary Editor, Writer, Critic
The Unquiet Grave

The highest ecstasy is the attention at its fullest.
Simone Weil
1909-1943, French Philosopher, Essayist, Mystic

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
Weil

For the ordinary mind, whose mind is a checkerboard of crisscrossing reflections, opinions, and prejudices, bare attention is virtually impossible; one's life is thus centered not on reality itself but in one's ideas about it.
Philip Kapleau
1909-, American Zen Master

Our attention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we're living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and one's desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord.
John Cage
1912-1992, American Composer, Musician

I think myself into silence and, by writing, help others similarly spellbound by thoughts and words to come to silence – which is the realization that a linear code cannot justly represent a nonlinear world. But this intellectual silence is not failure, defeat or suicide. It is a return to that naked awareness, that vision unclouded by commentary, which we enjoyed as babies in the days when we saw no difference between knower and known, deed and happening.
Alan Watts
1915-1973, British/American Philosopher, Writer
In My Own Way , 1972

You can observe a lot by just watching.
Yogi Berra
1925-, American Baseball Player, Coach

Mindfulness is the miracle by which we master and restore ourselves … it can call back in a flash our dispersed mind and restore it to wholeness so that we can live each minute of life.
Thich Nhat Hanh
1926-, Vietnamese Buddhist Master, Poet, Writer, Activist

The river of our perceptions continues to flow, but now, in the sunlight of our awareness, it flows peacefully, and we are serene … when the sun of awareness shines on the river of our perceptions, the mind is transformed.
Hanh
The Sun My Heart: From Mindfulness to Insight Contemplation , Arnold Kotler, ed., 1988

One's only task is to realize oneself.
R. D. Laing
1927-1989, Scottish Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst, Poet

Life is absolutely super and wonderful. There shouldn't be any sadness in it. People should be aware of all things at all times; they should experience the extremities of life, fulfil themselves completely. Why does everyone want to go to sleep when the only thing left is to stay awake?
Edward Albee
1928-, American Dramatist
in The New York Times , 1971

So habitual is the trance of ordinary life that one could say that human beings are a race that sleeps and awakens, but does not awaken fully. Because half-awake is sufficient for the task we customarily do, few of us are aware of the dysfunction of our condition.
Arthur Deikman
1929-, American Psychiatrist, Writer

This is what Wisdom means: To be changed without the slightest effort on your part, to be transformed, believe it or not, merely by waking to the reality that is not words, that lies beyond the reach of words. If you are fortunate enough to be Awakened thus, you will know why the finest language is the one that is not spoken, the finest action is the one that is not done and the finest change is the one that is not willed.
Anthony deMello
1931-1987, Indian Jesuit Priest, Writer
Introduction, One Minute Wisdom

When awareness is identified with thoughts we only exist in a certain time/space dimension. But when awareness goes behind thought, we are able to be free of time and see thoughts appearing and disappearing, just watching thought forms come into existence, exist, and pass away in a millisecond. And when the intensity of concentration allows us to see the space between two thoughts, we see eternity. There is no thought there. We realize that thought exists against the backdrop of no thought. Against the backdrop of emptiness, of nothing, we exist. And there we are at the edge of perceiving who we are.
Ram Dass
1931-, American Psychologist, Teacher, Writer
in Ram Dass & Stephen Levine, Grist for the Mill , 1976, 1987

There have been moments in your life when you were pure awareness. No concepts, no thoughts like "I am aware" or "That is a tree" or "Now I am meditating." Just pure awareness. Openness. A spacious quality in your existence … For that moment your image of yourself was lost in the gestalt, in the totality of the moment. You were not clinging to anything. You were not holding on to the experience. It was flowing – through you, around you, by you, in you. At that moment you were the experience. You were the flow … You had transcended the separation that thought creates. You were the moment in all its fullness.
Ram Dass
Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook , 1978

I suspect that we are all recipients of cosmic love notes. Messages, omens, voices, cries, revelations, and appeals are homogenized into each day's events. If only we knew how to listen, to read the signs.
Sam Keen
1931-, American Writer, Educator
The Passionate Life: Stages of Loving , 1983

Greater awareness does not come in a single blinding flash of enlightenment. It comes slowly, piece by piece, and each piece must be worked for by the patient effort of study and observation of everything, including ourselves.
M. Scott Peck
1936-, American Psychiatrist, Writer
The Road Less Travelled , 1978

At some point early in our lives, we decide just how conscious we wish to be. We establish a threshold of awareness. We choose how stark a truth we are willing to admit into consciousness, how readily we will examine contradictions in our lives and beliefs, how deeply we wish to penetrate. Our brains can censor what we see and hear, we can filter reality to suit our level of courage. At every crossroads we make the choice again for greater or lesser awareness.
Marilyn Ferguson
1938-, American Writer, Mind Researcher
The Aquarian Conspiracy , 1980

Enhanced awareness promotes in all of us the traits that abound in the creative person: Whole seeing. Fresh childlike perceptions. Playfulness, a sense of flow. Risk-taking. The ability to focus attention in a relaxed way, to become lost in the object of contemplation. The ability to deal with many complex ideas at the same time. Willingness to diverge from the prevailing view. Access to preconscious material. Seeing what is there rather than what is expected or conditioned.
Ibid.

The bodhisattva never seeks a trance state, bliss, or absorption. He is simply awake to life situations as they are. He is particularly aware of the continuity of meditation with generosity, morality, patience, and energy. There is a continual feeling of "awake."
Chogyam Trungpa
1939-1987, Tibetan Buddhist Leader, Writer, Translator
Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism , 1973

It may be more important to be awake than to be successful, balanced, or healthy. What does it mean to be awake? Perhaps to be living with a lively imagination, responding honestly and courageously to opportunity and avoiding the temptation to follow mere habit or collective values. It means to be an individual, in every instance manifesting the originality of who we are.
Thomas Moore
1940-, American Psychologist, Writer
Original Self , 2000

Just the fact of being slightly more aware changes the way in which you act. Once you've glimpsed what's going on, it's very difficult to get caught up in quite the same old way.
Joseph Goldstein
1944-, American Theravada Buddhist Teacher, Writer

Attention is the intention to live without reservation in the here-and-now.
Timothy Miller
1944-, American Educator, Writer

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.
Alice Walker
1944-, African-American Writer, Poet, Essayist
The Color Purple , 1982

Your Silent Master is completely aware, infinitely Intelligent, and ready to give you all the insight, information, and direction you need to fulfil your dreams, ambitions, and goals. In fact, this Consciousness is the Source of all your true desires.
Tae Yun Kim
1946-, Korean Martial Artist, Founder of Jung SuWon
Image V: You Have the Power to Fulfill Your Dreams, Seven Steps to Inner Power , 1991

Any cell, tissue, or organ is capable of crying out for attention, and when you give it some, the healing process begins.
Deepak Chopra
1947-, Indian/American Physician, Writer
Journey Into Healing: Awakening the Wisdom Within You , 1994

Whatever you put your attention on will grow stronger in your life.
Chopra

Consciousness is nothing but awareness, the composite of all the things we pay attention to.
Chopra

Once you know something, you cannot unknow it.
Larry Chang
1949-, Chinese-Jamaican Artist, Writer, Activist

If you enter a lower state or even a defiled state with clear awareness, then that state will transform into its corresponding wisdom. So if you enter passion with awareness, you will find compassion. If you enter anger with awareness, you will find clarity.
Ken Wilber
1949-, American Transpersonal Psychologist, New Age Theorist
A Brief History of Everything , 1996

When we talk about mindfulness, we are describing conscious living and alert presence of mind. Mindfulness helps us bring our innate awareness into sharper focus; it helps us pay attention to what we are doing as we are doing it. Paying attention helps us live in, and appreciate, the present moment in all its richness and depth. It helps us to see – truly see – what is actually going on. Simply put, attention pays off.
Surya Das
1950-, American Tibetan Buddhist Lama, Translator, Writer
Awakening to the Sacred: Creating a Spiritual Life from Scratch , 1999

You are no longer innocent, you are condemned to awareness.
Michael Dyson
1958-, African-American Scholar, Writer

The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.
Keanu Reeves
1964-, American Actor

Perception … is a constant communion between ourselves and the living world that encompasses us.
David Abram
American Philosopher, Ecologist, Magician
Radio interview, Insight & Outlook, by Scott London, 1999

Attention or awareness is the secret of life and the heart of practice … every moment in life is absolute itself. That's all there is. There is nothing other than this present moment; there is no past, there is no future; there is nothing but this. So when we don't pay attention to each little this, we miss the whole thing. And the contents of this can be anything. This can be straightening out our sitting mats. Chopping an onion, visiting one we don't want to visit. It doesn't matter what the contents of the moment are; each moment is absolute. That's all there is, and all there ever will be. If we could totally pay attention, we would never be upset. If we're upset, it's axiomatic that we're not paying attention. If we miss not just one moment, but one moment after another, we're in trouble.
Charlotte Joko Beck
American Zen Teacher
Nothing Special: Living Zen , 1994

As you open your awareness, life will improve of itself, you won't even have to try. It's a beautiful paradox; the more you open your consciousness, the fewer unpleasant events intrude themselves into your awareness.
Thaddeus Golas
American Writer, Editor
The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment , 1972, 2002

Each of us is … capable of outflowing attention and awareness, or withdrawing it. And this is all we need to do: Give full, permissive, loving attention to absolutely everything that we see in our minds, in our bodies, in our environment, in other people.
Ibid.

In our periods of fervor, we get a glimpse of what it is like to have real lucidity … We get near to supreme liberty, which consists in the power of being attentive to everything, and changing the sort of attention we give each thing according to the nature of the thing itself, and seeing each so well for what it is that each takes its place in the order of reality, and the soul bears down upon it, as the bee upon the flower, for the good it can yield.
- P. R. Regamey
Poverty

Be alert for any sign of beauty or grace, offer up every joy, be awake at all moments.
Sogyal Rinpoche
Tibetan Buddhist Monk, Writer

It's your life that you are living. Don't pick and choose when you'll be there. All of it is yours. No one else suffers more if you waste it than you. Be patient with yourself and make every effort to be fully attentive so that you don't waste any of it.
Angel Kyodo Williams
African-American Zen Priest
Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace , 2000

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Wisdom for The Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, © 2004