Perfect Attention
I was stunned to recently read that the human mind wanders every six to ten seconds. That means an unattached thought crowds in on my conscious attention up to six hundred times an hour or 9,600 times a day. –These pants give me a wedgie. Why didn’t I notice that at the store?– Given a minimum lapse of one to two seconds, as much as one third of my waking life is spent wool-gathering.
The spiritual ramifications of this are a bit troubling. During a simple two-minute prayer my intent to commune with God is temporarily derailed as many as 20 times. –Geez, I hate cilantro!– But what if God’s mind also wanders? How could it not? At times my prayers can be rote, my gratitude perfunctory, my petitions paltry. If a single day to God is really like a thousand years to man, then one to two seconds of inattention to Him is like four to eight days to us. –Maybe that’s why my prayers so often feel unanswered. One week of asking for an answer before the question comes to His attention. At least another week before He gets around to deciding whether or not I deserve an answer. Another week to get around to giving me an answer, but I’m probably not paying attention. Oh crap, I’m not paying attention now!–
Of course, this neurological phenomenon is probably only a constraint concomitant to mortality. God is an exalted being. He has an exalted mind. Given that one day/thousand year ratio, God should be able to attend to 365,000 times as many things as we mere mortals. This means that during the 20 two-second lapses within only one of my two-minute prayers, God has about six months to attend to the prayers of others. –Did I rinse the conditioner out of my hair this morning?– And, of course, that kind of time time is greatly needed considering the eight billion people residing on this planet with something like 300 million possibly thinking or uttering some form of prayer during any given hour.
So maybe we don’t need to feel guilty about our natural propensity to inattention. It gives God the slack time He needs to attend to everyone. –Oh, look. Something shiny!–
October 24th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
Have you tried meditating? Focusing only on your breath? Inhale, exhale. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in. Throat’s a bit scratchy. Damn cold. Did I catch it from Jana? Naw, she’s got it now, and these take a week to incubate, I think. Oh yeah, breathe in. Breathe out. How do those monks do it? There I go again. Breathing. I mean, what if they get a bad itch? A lotus-wedgie? Breath in…
A little snapshot inside my meditating brain. That’s when I realize the power of the human mind (or what Buddhists call the “monkey mind”) to wander.
October 24th, 2006 at 11:14 pm
Kinda makes the urgency of finding the lost keys seem futile, yes?
I actually have taken a meditation class with Scot and a few others. The wandering mind consisted of “who is that breathing loudly? Am I breathing too loudly? If I move, will I disturb someone? Who just moved? Oh, right - So hum… so hum…”
October 25th, 2006 at 5:36 am
Hey John and Rory, have you guys tried Bill Harris’s “Holosync”? Puts one into deep meditation quickly and powerfully and allows anything that comes up to be OK. Try it, you’ll like it. There is a great three-part dialogue between Harris and Ken Wilber posted on the Integral Naked website that one can listen to that explains how Harris came upon and developed this technology.
Good hunting.
ENK
October 25th, 2006 at 10:46 am
I’m not sure I follow what you’re saying, Scot. I mean, it seemed clear enough at first, but then my mind started to wander…..
October 25th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
Interesting thoughts, Scot, about wandering minds. . .
When I was really young, I thought I had mental Tourette’s. My internal monologue occasionally startled me by throwing in pretty colorful subconscious dialogue — all (egad!) way out of my ability to control . When I was about twelve, I thought the very worst thing would be if it ever happened. . . . in the TEMPLE!!
And like a stutter, the more I thought about the problem, the worse it got: The more I worried, the more the Tourette gremlins poked around in my brain, hey-daying with my sense of shame. What was even worse was that it didn’t seem to be coming from an outside source, but from my very own brain! Holy cow! She can’t be constrained!! With what virtue could I possibly garnish THESE thoughts?!?
It bothered me enough that I eventually made it a matter of prayer. Could I ever stand before the mercy seat without wishing I could chop off my head?
That very night I had a vivid experience. I felt the presence of a gentle and wise guide, and I “heard” him laugh. “We get that ALL the time.” the words came straight into my mind. “We can tell what’s intentional — and we let everything else pass right by without so much as a notice. You’re human, that’s all.”
He laughed. And I’ve never suffered it again.
October 25th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
That reminds me of when I was a bit younger, say ten years ago or so, I measured my thoughts according to how they worked inside the temple and how they worked outside. I figured that outside the temple, Satan could poke bad thoughts in through my ears. But when I was in the temple, whatever thoughts I had were mine, or poked into my ears by God.
Actually, having that view was a comfort to me because I thought about the same things most young men think about, and when I went into the temple, I thought about it a little less, leading me to figure I wasn’t as damned as I felt like I was outside the temple.
October 25th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
Lisa,
You really heard laughter? If you’re not pulling my leg in the spirit of my own post, I have to say that is one of the coolest stories I have heard. (I wish I could hear God laugh - with me, at me - it wouldn’t matter.)
But you and Stephen bring up an interesting twist to this brief glance at the incorrigible shenanigans of the “monkey brain.” The “as a man thinketh, so is he” method of assessing character was very troubling to me in the past. The assertion that dreams reveal hidden desires also plagued me for a time. Not so much any more, though. I have come to believe that actions speak louder than thoughts.
October 25th, 2006 at 11:06 pm
Not to move away from distracting thoughts (there’s an irony), Scot, but you remind me that the laughter (and the story is true, true, true) seemed way too hearty at the time to be angelic. Isn’t that fine and freeing? Heavenly laughter.
My daughter goes into the MTC next Wednesday, and we’ve been having discussions about “loud laughter.” Here’s what we concluded. We’re told that hot drinks are not for the body, right? And yet. . . . hot chocolate. The real point is apparently the hot caffeine.
Loud laughter seems to me to be in the same boat. Some loud laughter is apparently OK. I definitely “heard” hearty laughter in the experience related above, and the love accompanying it really did erase my narcissism and shame. (well . . . not ALL the narcissism.)
October 26th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
Lisa,
Fine and freeing, indeed! As to the prohibition of “loud laughter,” remember that it is linked unalterably with “light-mindedness.” The light-minded laugh at things which aren’t funny. They laugh at stupid things, hurtful things and sacred things. The serious-minded laugh at the truly funny aspects of the human condition. If we are laughing at the clever, the ironic or the insightful, God doesn’t care how loud we laugh. He’s only concerned that we not wet ourselves.
November 7th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
Lisa, here is that letter from my son, regarding “Heavenly Laughter”.
ENK
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Dear Dad,
Question: What Made the Heavenly Host Laugh?
Hey, what if Sunstone had a “Witness to God” session, where persons described their profound “spiritual” experiences?
As you know, I experienced the “laughter of the heavenly host” within a sequence and complex of extraordinary phenomena that occurred when, after 5 years of “long suffering” and on the abyss of death, I cried out to the heavens, needing to know if there was a God, because if there was not, I could not, and would not endure the pain and torture of this life any longer.
At a certain point within the experience, dozens of questions I held about religious dogma were answered specifically.
It was in response to one of these questions that the “heavenly host” laughed. And I laughed too, knowing why it was so funny.
First, imagine your favorite comedian telling the funniest joke you’ve ever heard, which makes you laugh so deep and hard that it brings you to tears, hurts your sides, and makes you gasp for air…
Now imagine laughing into a concert-quality microphone powered by a cranked-up 1000-watt amp driving a stack of high-power, concert-quality, super-bass speakers…
Now imagine being in a huge stadium, filled to capacity with people, each equipped with their own mic, amp, and speakers…
Now imagine all of you laughing that laugh into your cranked-up microphones at the same time…
Now imagine all of the stadiums in the world filled with all of the people in the world, each having their own mic, amp, and speakers, and all laughing that laugh into their cranked-up mic’s at the same time…
Now imagine all of the moons, planets, stars, and galaxies being full of stadiums full of people with mic’s, amp’s, and speakers, all laughing into their cranked-up mic’s at the same time…
Then you will have only the slightest notion of what it is like to experience the laughter of that which can only be described as the “heavenly host,” that which is the source of all knowledge, power, joy, and creation, that un-individuated massive plurality that is one mind, that which defies description and cannot be named, that which is so misunderstood and abused for human purposes, and that which is so inadequately referred to as God by unknowing believers and non-believers alike.
It was because of the laughter that I was able to realize that the supreme source that is one mind is a plurality of all, and all were represented.
So, there it is. If you hear of anyone else having experienced a literal & powerful energetic heart opening, or a combination of “judgment day,” “salvation,” and “redemption,” I’ll be glad to describe mine too.
BTW, you do know that the streaks in my chin-beard came from that event, don’t you? This is why I will never shave that part of my face. It is a testament to divinity.
NEK