446. Remembering Attention

Remember to pay attention to your attention. Allow it to be open and free, so that your awareness will expand, your suffering will shrink, and your joy will grow. Open it by letting go of anything that could restrict it from going where it needs to go. Free it by unshackling it from control and by allowing it to move when it needs to move.

Notice your attachments to your intentions — to your strongest desires, aversions, and beliefs. Notice how your attention returns to these same intentions over and over again. Notice also the kinds of suffering that you experience — persistent feelings of regret, stress, anxiety, frustration, anger, despair, grief, and many more.

Recognize the connection between your suffering and your attachments, and how the former arises when your attention is controlled by the latter. Set your attention free from all of the thoughts, feelings, memories, and imaginings that arise in you again and again. Notice how often your attention settles on thoughts about your intentions and how difficult it can be to set it free again.

See the needs that your attention is drawn to when it is open and free. Feel the joy that arises when one of your needs is met and notice the difference between this feeling and the relief that follows from satisfying an attachment. Watch how your open and free attention notices the needs of others without intervention or control. Experience how seeing need feels, how there is a pull to respond to it with action.

Notice again how your attention is distracted by attachment, which prevents you from responding to need. Remind yourself that is by loosening your attention that your awareness expands, and that greater awareness will liberate you from suffering. Revel in the joy you create for yourself in each and every moment of freedom and celebrate this new way of life.