There are a huge number of institutions and tools designed to take your attention—political technologies, mass media, entertainment, social media—all aimed at taking your attention.
Your Attention is the most valuable resource you have, even more than your life itself. That’s why everyone wants your attention—entertainment industry, politicians, media, advertisers, big companies, your family, even your pets. Everyone wants your attention. Do you understand? It’s the most valuable resource you have. I don’t know any other method that would allow you to develop your attention, to truly understand what your attention is, how to use it, and how to manage it effectively.
Why do you need to develop your attention?
To stop suffering. How are suffering and attention connected? Most people suffer from thoughts, stress, worries, fears, addictions, and so on, but the problem isn’t the thoughts themselves. The problem is that our attention is automatically directed to those thoughts. It’s the automaticity that’s the problem. From childhood, we’ve been taught to automatically direct 100% of our attention to our thoughts. When we live in these thoughts—in the chaos they create—we start to suffer.
In order to get out of this suffering while still living a fulfilling life, you need to:
– Develop your attention;
– Learn how to use your attention;
– Understand what the mind and thoughts are and how to use those thoughts.
Thoughts are wonderful tools, but to use them effectively, you need to develop the skills of your attention. This is easy enough to do if you follow our exercises. The person who can control their attention can control their life completely. That’s the key. When we start to control our lives, we stop suffering. We become absolutely free and cannot be influenced from outside. We decide who to let influence us and who not to.
The goal isn’t to retreat to the mountains, a monastery, or a cave—that’s not living. The goal is to live in the ordinary world while managing your life through your attention. Regardless of what is happening around us, we can always feel good. No matter what is going on, we can feel good as long as we understand what thoughts are and manage our attention. We can even divide our attention into many parts.
Why should you divide your attention into several parts? This question may arise because it seems like it would take up a lot of energy.
However, it’s important to clarify that we are dividing our attention, not multiple thoughts at the same time. Thoughts and attention are completely different phenomena. Dividing or distributing attention is necessary for a full experience of life. By doing this, none of the aspects of our life will be neglected, and we will always feel “good”, regardless of what is happening around us.
For maximum effect, I recommend dividing attention into the following:
- Attention observation: Understanding where your attention is right now.
- Observing the body: Noticing its needs and how it feels.
- Perception through the body: Being aware of what is happening around us through our senses (sight, hearing, smell).
- Observing the mind: Noticing how thoughts come and go, understanding which thoughts are trying to capture our attention.
In total, we get four to five objects of attention. This allows us to live fully: being aware of our body and its needs, perceiving our surroundings, using thoughts independently, and managing all of this at the same time. This is all done through and with the help of attention.
By mastering this, we can live the meaning of life more fully, achieve a state of happiness, and eliminate suffering.
For more details on living, happiness, the meaning of life, relationships and thoughts you can refer to other articles.
Attention has a unique characteristic: it can be directed. It can focus on one object or several objects at the same time. Attention can be automatically taken from you, or you can consciously choose where to direct it and keep track of it.
Attention Management involves actively choosing where to direct your attention at every moment and understanding where it is directed. It means observing your attention and being able to switch it to different objects, dividing it among multiple objects or just a few, and understanding the proportions in which it is divided. It’s not necessary to direct 100% of your attention to one thing; for example, you can direct 1-2% to observing attention itself, 50% to thoughts, 40% to vision, 5% to hearing, and 3-4% to bodily sensations. The ability to adjust these percentages and the number of objects you focus on is also part of controlling your attention. The most crucial aspect is to eliminate the automatic attention that is often absorbed by thoughts. Why this is essential is detailed in the article about thoughts.Attention can be both focused and unfocused. It can be directed towards a state of unfocusing, such as in thoughts, and it can be moved to different distances and directed at any objects.
To manage your attention, you first need to understand what it is. The best way to do this is through the 4 points exercise.
Try to focus your attention on a point at the top of your head right now. Once you do, try to move your attention point outside your body without visualization or imagination. Not the feeling, but the attention itself. Try to hold your attention on that point and observe how you are doing this for at least a few minutes.
After completing the exercise, reflect on how you managed to focus your attention. Consider how you knew you were successful or not. Think about how you can prove to yourself that you did it without relying on visualization. This exercise will help you to understand what your attention is, help to ‘feel’ it, to ‘touch’ it.
Attention is one of the essential parts of a human being, as the ‘glue’ that binds all other aspects together. Based on research and personal experience, attention extends beyond the physical body. Try to define the size of your attention by yourself.
Human being is made up of many aspects, more on that in another article::
- Physical body.
- Ordinary senses
- Abstract senses
- Mind
- Attention
Fully living and managing all these aspects at the same time make us feel ‘good’. More details about this effect can be found here..
My approach to Attention and the method of Attention training is not related to any spiritual, esoteric, religious, or any other movements. This is pure mental training that is focused on developing your Attention. I promise you will get tired; it is hard training. It is truly a mentally fulfilling challenge. For some, it will be the hardest workout of their life. It may be the same as lifting the heaviest barbell, but it’s the only way to get results. It’s the only way to stop suffering.
It’s the shortest way I know to stop suffering and feel good all the time. That’s what everyone strives for: to feel good. You might call it happiness or peace, but it all comes down to a simple state of “YES”.
And for this all you need to do is to develop your attention skills and understand what attention and thoughts truly are.
So what can attention training do for you?
– You’ll experience a deeper insight into your mind and thoughts
– You’ll experience a deeper insight into your attention
– You’ll get tools and skills to use your mind and thoughts that you already have or that have not yet come to you
– You’ll develop your attention
– You’ll gain the skills and tools to use your attention
– Of course you’ll get the tools to be happy
– You’ll learn how not to lose your happiness
– You’ll learn how to stop suffering
– You’ll learn how to stop getting stuck in emotions
– You’ll learn how to stop getting stuck in thoughts, including fears, addictions and more
– You’ll experience a deeper insight into your being
– Perhaps you’ll find the meaning of your life.
And, of course, the result depends on your choice to either continue suffering or not.
I am here to provide you with the tools and explain the conclusions you can draw from your own research during our exercises. However, this doesn’t mean you should blindly follow my advice. Your experience and research come first, and then we will discuss them together.
For some, just hearing the principles—that you can manage your attention, explore your thoughts, observe your mind, and understand and use attention—will be enough. My methods are simple. For some, it will be enough to complete all the exercises from beginning to end, with or without repetition—it doesn’t matter. And, of course, some of you might find it challenging to complete the tasks on your own. You may need additional explanations, have further questions, or require guidance and support. For these purposes, we have trained mentors.
Anyway, your attention is your most important resource, and your attention is your responsibility.
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