Your attention is your Life-Force
Dear Be-you-at-the-Full Being, esteemed Reader,
In this weeks Soul-Letter I want to explore one of the most powerful instruments we have been given: the human mind – and where we allow it to take us.
The mind is extraordinary.
It can organize, calculate, imagine, create, communicate, learn, remember and solve. It can guide our hands through intricate work, help us plan a journey, prepare a meal, write a letter, build something, learn a language or find a solution to a practical situation.
For all of this, the mind is an exquisite instrument.
The difficulty begins when this same instrument enters areas where no practical action is required and starts producing an endless psychological reality of its own.
What if this happens?
What if I do not receive what I want?
What if I lose what I have?
When will things finally change?
Why did this happen to me?
What will they think of me?
Suddenly, the mind is no longer serving life.
Life is serving the mind.
And much of our precious attention becomes absorbed by imagined futures, remembered pasts, rehearsed conversations, fears, expectations, comparisons and desires.
This is the difference between what we may call the functional mind and the psychological mind.
"The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive."
The functional mind deals with what is here.
There is something to be done, so it does it.
You need to answer an important message. You answer it.
You need to calculate something. You calculate it.
You need to make a decision based on the information presently available. You examine the facts and decide.
Then the task is complete.
The psychological mind operates differently.
It rarely stops when the practical matter ends.
You send the message, and then begin wondering how it will be received.
You make the decision, and then spend hours imagining everything that could go wrong.
Something happened years ago, and the mind keeps recreating it as though it were occurring now.
Nothing is physically happening in this moment, yet internally an entire world is unfolding.
And the body reacts to that world.
The heart races.
The muscles tighten.
The breath changes.
Energy contracts.
An imagined tomorrow or remembered yesterday has entered the living reality of now.
Where is your attention going?
There is something immensely valuable that we often overlook:
Your attention is your life-force.
Where attention repeatedly goes, energy follows.
Imagine having a vessel filled each morning with a finite amount of precious water.
One small opening may seem insignificant. Another one too. Yet if water continually escapes through dozens of tiny openings, very little remains when you actually need it.
Our attention can move in a similar way.
A little goes into worrying.
A little into comparison.
A little into replaying yesterday.
A little into imagining tomorrow.
A little into what someone said.
A little into what someone may say.
A little into situations that have not occurred.
And then we wonder why we feel mentally exhausted.
The issue is not that we possess too little energy.
We may simply be distributing much of it into places where life is not actually happening.
"Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have."
The past has already happened. The future has not.
The psychological mind largely creates itself through these two territories.
The past gives it identity.
The future gives it something to fear, pursue or anticipate.
Between the two, the present can almost disappear.
And yet the present is the only place where intelligence can actually express itself.
You cannot respond intelligently yesterday.
You cannot act intelligently tomorrow.
You can only respond now.
This does not mean that we never remember or plan. Memory and planning are functions of an intelligent mind.
It means we begin to recognize when these functions have completed their purpose and when thought has crossed into unnecessary psychological continuation.
There is enormous freedom in learning to recognize the difference.
Ask one simple question
The next time your mind begins racing, try this:
Is there anything I actually need to do about this right now?
If the answer is yes, do what can be done.
Make the call.
Write the message.
Take the step.
Have the conversation.
Gather the information.
Complete the task.
And give yourself fully to it.
If the answer is no, recognize what is occurring.
The mind has left function and entered psychological projection.
Then come back.
Feel your feet.
Notice your breath.
Look around you.
Hear the sounds in the room.
Become present to the activity immediately in front of you.
Not as a technique to escape thought.
As a remembrance of where life actually is.
This simple discernment can begin changing our entire relationship with the mind.
Instead of trying to silence it, fight it or control every thought, we learn to place the mind back into its natural role:
a magnificent servant of consciousness, rather than the ruler of our existence.
And something remarkable may begin to happen.
When less energy is consumed by internal noise, there is more space.
More clarity.
More creativity.
More sensitivity.
More responsiveness.
More intelligence available for the moment that is actually asking for you.
Perhaps genius is not always the capacity to think more.
Perhaps sometimes it is the capacity to stop giving thought to what does not require it.
To be so wholly here that the intelligence of the moment can move through you unobstructed.
Come back to what is here
So this week, observe where your mind takes you.
Not with judgment.
With curiosity.
Notice when it is serving something practical.
Notice when it begins building psychological stories.
Notice how often fear belongs to an imagined future.
Notice how often emotional weight belongs to a remembered past.
And whenever you recognize that your attention has wandered into either one, gently ask:
What is life asking of me now?
Perhaps there is something to do.
Perhaps there is nothing to do.
Either way, return here.
To this breath.
This body.
This conversation.
This movement.
This silence.
This one living moment.
Because when our attention stops leaking into countless imagined realities, we become available again for the only reality we can ever truly meet:
the one unfolding now.
And perhaps that is where the One-Mind has always been waiting to express itself through us.
Not tomorrow.
Not once everything has been resolved.
Here.
Final Prayer
Great Spirit,
may I recognize the mind as the sacred instrument it is,
without mistaking its stories for Reality.May I release what belongs to yesterday
and surrender what has not yet arrived.May my attention return to where Life is,
my actions arise from clarity,
and my mind become quiet enough
for the intelligence of the One-Mind to move through me.May I meet what is here, fully, openly and without resistance.
And may I remember that this moment is enough.
Aho.
In Presence,
O-hey-O
Bear Saorin
The One Mind Sanctum
P.S. Every time you return from an imagined future or remembered past into what is actually here, you reclaim a little more of your attention – and therefore a little more of your Life.
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