Our attention is fracked

Someone sent me an article the other day, “Powerful forces are fracking our attention. We can fight back.” Teachers have identified a big problem (and they’re not the only ones):

The lament is as old as education itself: The students aren’t paying attention. But today, the problem of flighty or fragmented attention has reached truly catastrophic proportions. High school and college teachers overwhelmingly report that students’ capacity for sustained, or deep attention has sharply decreased, significantly impeding the forms of study — reading, looking at art, round-table discussions — once deemed central to the liberal arts.

Here is a free version of that article, I’m sorry if it doesn’t work, I’ll be quoting relevant bits in any case for those of you who can’t read the whole thing. And, more to the point, sharing an accessible meditation that will unfrack our attention.

There’s growing evidence that we have, collectively, a mental health crisis on our hands, and that spending hours a day on our gadgets, searching for happiness in our hand-held devices – whether we swipe left or right, up or down, or round and round – is not helping. Still we do it, but it’d be great if we did it less.

I largely (not entirely) stopped tuning into the endless American news cycle online a few weeks ago – I just had had enough. I lost interest pretty quickly in so many events that seemed crucial at the time (because I was media saturated and needed my fix), but that I find I am surprisingly easily able to live without. I take the occasional dip into The Week now and then to check that the world is still turning, and have placed spiritual books strategically around my apartment instead, no longer just gathering dust on my bookshelf. There’s a bit more time now to dip into them instead of the Internet, and, though less sensationalist, I still find them more uplifting. Tweaking our habits really helps. (I hope this lasts!)

In any case, I don’t think I need to gather much more hard evidence that a lot of people in our world are having a pretty awful time. I do need to be doing something about it, such as focusing on compassion and wisdom, seeking enlightenment while I still have a few years left to do so.

We’re already discontented enough just being a human being. Why make things worse for ourselves? I don’t think anyone can kid themselves these days that all this scrolling is fulfilling or even much fun anymore. The question is, what’s the alternative, or, as I think we know the alternative, how are we going to implement it?! These teachers have come up with a commendable initiative for schools:

We must flip the script on teachers’ perennial complaint. Instead of fretting that students’ flagging attention doesn’t serve education, we must make attention itself the thing being taught.

It just so happens that meditation is probably the most direct and tried and tested antidote in existence because its whole job is to increase attention, inner peace, and contentment. I hope these educators find a way to teach it to counteract these kids’ addiction. For an addiction it is, let’s not kid ourselves.

From concentration comes peace.

So said Nagarjuna. As Venerable Geshe-la says in How to Transform Your Life (one readable book to have hanging around in your living room, preferably hiding the tablet beneath it):

The purpose of meditation is to make our mind calm and peaceful. If our mind is peaceful, we will be free from worries and mental discomfort, and so we will experience true happiness; but if our mind is not peaceful, we will find it very difficult to be happy, even if we are living in the very best conditions.

Concentration is single-pointed focus on one object, a happy object that we choose; but we seem to be training in its opposite — seeing how many inane things we can flit to in any given minute.

Let alone the lost art of introspection, nowadays most of us can’t even sit through a 2-hour movie (which not long ago was the height of entertainment) without getting restless and picking up our gadgets or talking to Siri, Alexa, or a growing array of AI bots. We probably used to get up to open the fridge once or twice, but this is a whole different scale of distraction and neediness.

I saw some images of where people of different generations keep their phones when they are on their laptops — people over 50 can just about bear them to be on the other side of the room, people over 30 need them at arm’s length, and people under 30 need them practically right on the keyboard. (Anyone being born today will probably need them stapled to their heads.) I made up those ages, but that was the jist of it.

Why do we pick up our phones?, I asked a group of mostly Gen Zers the other day: “We don’t like silence”. “We seek distraction ‘cos we’re bored. It’s a way to stop boredom or even the threat of boredom.” “It’s a way to escape stress and difficult feelings.” “It makes you feel less alone, even though I get that I’d feel less alone just by talking to the person in front of me.”

Our mind seems to be daily fractured into a million pieces. If our mind is always on the move, skittering around for diversions to alleviate the boredom and stress, then I think we can say that it is not peaceful. It’s not calm. Our state of mind feels quite superficial as well – not like a deep feeling of contentment or fulfillment or purpose or warmth or joy or bliss in our heart.

By some measures you are lucky these days to get 47 seconds of focused attention on a discrete task. “Middlemarch” is tough sledding on that timeline. So are most forms of human interaction out of which meaningful life, collective action and political engagement are made.

Talking of meaning, collective action, and engagement, it also seems to me that we are so passive these days. Even listening to Dharma can be passive if we’re not careful, more like “entertain me!”, as if we have forgotten the art of engaging in the material. Dharma requires us to be listening actively, asking ourselves questions, for example, such as “Is this true? Does this apply to my life? How can I use this?”

In the Lamrim scriptures it is suggested that we start listening to each class by remembering that we are suffering (quite grievously) from the diseases of the delusions and need (very much) to take this medicine. If a doctor was to give us life-saving advice, we’d probably be paying attention and trying to remember everything they’re saying to us. If we’re sitting on a plane and hear this safety briefing, “Well, folks, we are likely to crash on this trip. Now, please pay attention to these safety procedures for this Boeing aircraft ….”, I for one would pay far more attention than I usually do.

Even reciting prayers and sadhanas seems to have become more of a hearing rather than doing activity these days. Venerable Geshe-la advised in The Mirror of Dharma that we have to memorize our daily prayers because we can then mentally recite them, not getting distracted by speaking them out loud. But I feel a lot of us may have missed out on that rather crucial step (memorization) and, as we are also no longer reciting them out loud, we are now just hearing the prayers like background music. If we are not mentally reciting them as we go along, we are not engaging in them, are we?! What do you Kadampas out there think?

Can we be bothered to meditate?!

Here’s a good meditation to counteract all this damaging distraction, providing we want to do it. It won’t work if we don’t.

We can ask ourselves these kinds of questions first of all:

Do I want to be less distracted? How will this make me happier? Will the ability to focus my mind really help me find peace and joy today? Am I prepared to put aside 10 to 15 minutes to make this happen? How much better will this make the rest of my day?!

Hopefully we’ll conclude, “Yeah, it’s worth it! I am going to do this. I would like to meditate without distraction.” And feel happy with this decision. Already we are being more proactive with our own lives! And this wish is heart-centered so we are on our way.

Then we stop thinking about anything, stop paying attention to anything, and remain like an inanimate object such as a piece of wood or a stone. I explain this meditation in this article based on Geshe-la’s teachings. It has the fancy official title “Absorption of cessation of gross conceptual thoughts”, and it was the wise Shantideva who described it as “turning the mind to wood” – a very effective technique to turn off unhappy minds and, as it happens, all of our other distractions as well. Here is a reminder of how to do it, along with some added extra bits at the end if you like.

Meditation on turning the mind to wood or stone

• We take a moment to gently focus on our breathing, allowing our mind to settle a little bit. Then we ask ourselves, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I were able to meditate with a mind free from distracting thoughts?”
• With this wish we stop thinking in a very gentle, very relaxed way. We hold our minds still, as if it is now inanimate, like a stone. We disengage from whatever is arising.
• Thoughts arise but we don’t follow them. We stop thinking. We hold our minds relaxed but very still for a few minutes.
• Where before our mind was full of thoughts, there is now an absence or space. Very gently and naturally our mind absorbs inwards towards our heart.
• With our mind a little more settled and centered, we become aware of its peaceful, spacious expanse. We allow our awareness to abide in that space.
• This peace, however slight, is arising naturally, just from allowing our mind to settle, indicating that we are experiencing the peaceful pure nature of our own mind.
• This present peace, however slight, clearly indicates our potential for vast peace and contentment. Our mind has no boundary, no limits. This is my potential for enlightenment, for profound transformation. It is my Buddha nature. How wonderful!
• We can start changing our sense of self, identifying with this peace to impute, “I am a peaceful person with boundless potential.”
• If you wish, within this experience of peace we can know that we are connecting to the blessings of Buddha’s mind. Venerable Geshe-la says that every moment of peace arises through Buddha’s blessings, so right now we are in communion with the ocean of peace that is Guru Buddha’s mind.
• Appearing in that space of our minds, in our life to guide us, and in the space in front, we can mentally see Buddha Shakyamuni and all the other holy beings, like a full moon surrounded by a vast galaxy of stars. Lift our sights.
• We can also feel that we’re surrounded by our family, friends, and everyone else, knowing that, just like us, they have the same potential. We are not inherently samsaric distracted beings. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could actualize our potential for the benefit of all of us? This is what meditation will enable me to do. I am a meditator.
• We can, if we like, recite the Liberating Prayer, letting the words remind us not just of Buddha Shakyamuni’s good qualities but our own future good qualities if we continue along this path.

Hope this is helpful. I’ve more to say on the subject in the next article, and meantime would love your feedback and any tips and tricks you can share.