Practice ,Bare Attention - to keep the mind less cluttered.

Attachment to phenomena is one of the mental habits that I feel is often left unchecked by those who seek to understand the workings of the human mind. This includes, images, thoughts and ideas, past experiences etc. The mind to me is like a sponge that attach itself and absorb all that it comes into contact with every second of the the day whether we are aware of it or not. The mind is like an invisible wide angle lens panoramic camera, equipped with extra sensory audio attachment that is ever left on to snap at every sense of experience, sight and smell, thoughts and ideas; it is the eternal recorder of life. There is a simple practice in a school of Buddhism, the Hinayana school that teaches us to deal with this mental weakness that we have and it is simply called, 'Bare Attention'. It is a form of meditation that helps us to not get  drawn into or attached to any external or inner given stimuli, imagery, episodes or experiences that occurs in our daily existence. It is a sort of a strainer or blinders to ward off unwanted or irrelevant objects or phenomena etc. This is what is known also as in the words of Trungpa Rinpoche, 'Meditation in Action', whereby you become almost impervious to the external stimuli around you except for what is really needed to be dealt with in the moment.

When you see a lady walking by you, it is just a lady passing by do not see a nice piece of ass or a nice pair of tits,  sexy or ugly short or tall, to put it blatantly, you simply sense a lady passing by or a car driving by and not an Audi or a BMW, white or black, driven by so and so and why you cannot own one and so forth. Bare attention is the act of bringing it all into the bare minimum perspective and when there is no added interest to what you sense or experience, the phenomena simply drops off having no hold on your consciousness. Watching the Videos of what is happening around the world with CIVID-19 you learn to simply watch and understand without adding on to what you see with your thoughts and opinion, judgment and like or dislike. Same as, as you watch what is happening in the US on videos, you simply watch, feelings may arise but you do not need to add on more than what you see, you simply watch just to be more aware of what is happening for better or worse even, you are simply an observer, a witness being a part of the whole it is in your nature to know. Witnessing with bare attention keeps you from being attached to the events and become involved much more than you need to be and thus more thinking added to clutter your mind.

Bare attention does not imply that you become blind to what is going on around you, it simply means you are less attached to what you see, feel or  even taste; the details This practice helps toward keeping the mind less distracted and easier to bring to a complete silence when performing a sitting meditation. Even while sitting and trying to bring the mind into silence, bare attention towards what arises in the mind and the ability let go becomes much easier. Often times we keep an ongoing thought when the thought is pleasant or productive even and tries our best to shove aside a negative thought; practicing bare attention allows for am ambivalent attitude towards all thoughts that arises while meditating. In essence we try not to walk around attracting to ourselves thoughts and images, events and episodes that have no positive values for us. It is like trimming all the unnecessary branches, so the tree can grow more lighter and taller.

"An entire sea of water can't sink a ship unless it gets in the ship.
Similarly the negativity of the world can't put you down unless you allow it to get inside you." - Thich Naht Hahn.
#Thich Nhat Hahn,#Bare Attention,# Trungpa Rinpoche,# Meditation in Action.