Attention

Many Illnesses, One Prescription

“When people would ask Buddha, ‘What should we do not to be angry, or what should we do not to be greedy, or what should we do not to be so much obsessed with sex or food?’ his answer was always the same: be aware. Bring awareness to your life.”

“If two thousand persons fall asleep, they will have two thousand dreams. But if you go to an enlightened person and ask how to get rid of this dream, the medicine will remain the same: wake up! It is not going to be different; the prescription is going to be the same. You can call it awareness, you can call it witnessing, you can call it remembering, you can call it meditation – these are different names for the same medicine.”

According to an enlightened person, there’s only one cure for all the psychological troubles we’re facing: awareness.

If you struggle with anxiety, the cure is awareness. Watch your anxiety, be alert when it arises, pay attention to it. Be curious. See it for what it is. If you keep watching it long enough, it will eventually drop by itself.

Likewise, if you struggle with depression, the cure is watching the depression. If you struggle with insecurities, the cure is witnessing the insecurities. If you struggle with anger, the cure is becoming more aware of the anger. If you struggle with addictions, the cure is paying more attention to your addictive patterns.

The Goal: Living With as Much Awareness as You Can Muster

Whatsoever you are doing – walking, sitting, eating, or if you are not doing anything, just breathing, resting, relaxing in the grass – never forget that you are a watcher.

You will forget it again and again. You will get involved in some thought, some feeling, some emotion, some sentiment – anything will distract you from the watcher. Remember, and run back to your center of watching.

Make it an inner process, continuously… You will be surprised at how life changes its whole quality. I can move my hand without any watchfulness, and I can also move my hand absolutely watching from inside the whole movement. The movements are totally different. The first movement is a robot movement, mechanical. The second movement is a conscious movement. And when you are conscious, you feel that hand from within; when you are not conscious, you only know the hand from without.”

Live your life with as much awareness, alertness, mindfulness as possible.

You can be aware in any and every of your day’s activities: When you’re taking a shower, feel the water as it hits your body and smell the scent of your soap. When you’re walking to the gym, listen attentively to the sound of the wind hushing by. When you’re taking a nap, feel every part of your body lying there and pay attention to the fact that you’re slowly, slowly entering into a state of sleep.

If we realize and accept that awareness changes us for the better), then it makes sense to spend as much time as possible living with awareness. The more aware we become, the more we will grow as a person, the more we will let our miseries and past conditionings behind, and the happier and more fulfilled we will be.

Of course, all of this is easier said than done. Being mindful throughout our day-to-day lives is an incredibly difficult endeavor.