Attention is a prayer

A poem for you

Every morning, for just a few seconds, 
sunlight slips through the window
and runs down a narrow slip of space 
to perforate an ornate screen door. 

It casts a square of patterned light
beside my bed and I hold my hand to it 
as it gently pulsates with the rising day - 
its shape animate between 
the breaths of the swaying tree outside. 

And I don’t know what god is
or how to pray, but I do know
how to pay attention

and by holding a still mind
against a fluctuating world
life becomes disrobed of its mundanity, 
revealing a lustrous interior 
that can only be described as divine. 

And I wonder if there is 
a better way to spend a life 
other than placing 
my entire being upon 
whatever comes to be blessed
by simple presence. 

Attention fosters intimacy. By becoming more intimate with simple, everyday moments, we gently allow life to reveal its secrets. Even amidst pain, dissatisfaction, and heartache, our willingness to pay attention to what else is here, be it a sound, a sensation, or a quiet stillness helps us broaden our experience beyond the limitation of ache.

Attention is not just a cognitive function - it is a form of worship that whispers of our deepest connections to everything around us. Cultivating this sacred attention transforms our daily life into a continuous prayer, where every moment is an opportunity to connect with the profundity that is simply being here.

A Reflection To Take With You…

Without judgment, what are you paying the most attention to these days? Notice how intimacy can be confused with identification. When we are intimate with something we are in relationship with it, but when we are identified, we are it. Gently notice whether you intimate or identified with what you are paying attention to?

Dive deeper? Does attention need a sense of self to be attentive? Or can there be just the verb of Attention-ing what is here through the senses?