ABSTRACT
Attention has been extensively discussed in psychoanalytic and Buddhist literature. Here I propose to see it as an environment, the habitat of the mind’s materials. Considering the conditioned nature of inner and outer reality and the non-solidity of memory, I examine various states of mind and their effects on the internal and interpersonal attentional environment. I look into how their qualities can either attack our sensitivity or support its maturation, undermine processes of healing and growth or nourish them.
Gentle people seem to have a developed sense of aesthetics and a high sensitivity to mental toxicity and discordance. I demonstrate how a delicate attentional environment makes it possible to work with subtleties and describe how an interpersonal state I call “quiet love and openness to truth” provides a favorable climate for the mind – whether gentle or not.
I reflect on the connection between non-clinging and the ability to move with the waves of experience in the therapeutic space, during meditation, and in general. In this context, I examine holding onto knowledge and a sense of expertise, anxious need for accuracy vs. accuracy as-it-is, and the relationship between anxiety, reactivity, and rigidity. I discuss non-instrumental states of mind, non-clinging to hoped-for results, which balance effort and support a non-dualistic, non-violent approach.
