Might Attention be our Most Valuable Skill and can it be Trained?

How often do you think about your attentional skills? Your ability to direct attention to where you want, to keep it stable, and not get tired in the process. William James — American philosopher and psychologist from a century ago who is often considered the founder of psychology in America — thought about it a good deal. Among other things he said:

“…whether the attention come by grace of genius or dint of will, the longer one does attend to a topic the more mastery of it one has. And the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention over and over again is the very root of judgment, character, and will. […] And education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.”

How good is your ability to concentrate? How often do you find your mind wandering away from what you have decided to do? Try it out now. Close your eyes. Decide to concentrate on your breath. Just following the breath in and out. Without any commentary. Just observing. How long can you do it without being taken away by your thoughts? Try it a few times.

William James says that education which should improve this faculty would be excellent education. Buddhism and probably every other contemplative tradition has the training of attention as their foundation. It is to increase the stability of attention as well as to increase the ability to notice subtler and shorter content. Would this not be one of the most valuable skills we can have? To be able to focus on tasks we want. To be able to notice the previously sub-conscious thoughts and emotions. To be able to recognise with introspection when we are lying to ourselves and others.

Fighter pilots and air traffic controllers can stay concentrated for a long time. We can also do it when we are into something very interesting. But can we do it voluntarily, in any context, and do it without tightening up and getting tired? The goal of attention training in Buddhism is to have stability and clarity while being able to be relaxed. In any situation we wish, not only when something arouses our attention.

Interested? Wanting to know more? I can suggest some great resources that you might find interesting:

• Tenzin Palmo is a fabulous British nun who is often known for her Cave in the Snow where she spent 12 years in retreat. She speaks in a very down-to-earth way and taught on attention training at Tushita Meditation Centre in India. Watch it on youtube.
• B. Alan Wallace is a great bridge between authentic Buddhist teachings and western scientific tradition. He has a good training in and a great deal of respect for both. Alan often talks about the importance of training attention and how to do it. A lot of his material is available free of charge. A public talk of 1.5 hours, a four-session week-end teaching, a week-long retreat, and many guided meditations and teachings. A great book called Attention Revolution. A video from a lecture on the Science of Mindfulness.
• You can also find interesting teachings from the books of Matthieu Ricard, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, and Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche.

Most of all though it is worthwhile to pick-up the simplest of instructions from some of the talks or videos and try it out. There is no other way to see if there is any way to work with your attention than to try working with it.

And if you become even more interested then you can come to one of the retreats I help to organise in Estonia.