Attention is the means through which, in silent meditation, we focus our mind on people and things as they really are - in truth and in love.
The two most fundamental laws of life are to adhere to truth and to love. These laws are an inalienable part of our human make-up, they are warp and woof of our existence. No collective authority, whether social, political or whatever it may be, can in any way diminish these individual rights or limit them as obligations. Our love by its very nature has to stretch as widely as the whole of space, and our intelligence should reach out to all reality without any restriction or prejudice. Our minds should operate with unlimited freedom and complete impartiality. We achieve this through attention.
No one has practised and explained the skill of attention as well as Simone Weil, a French mystic and philosopher (1909 - 1943). The ideas in this chapter are taken from her thought.
Attention involves:
Perhaps never before in the history of humankind, has the need for intellectual honesty, sincerity in behaviour and frankness of speech been so universally acclaimed as in our own days. Yet truth usually comes out second best in the age-old struggle with diplomacy, cowardice and ambition. There is a crying need for an enormous re-evaluation of sincerity and truth in our own days.
Make up your mind, therefore, to surrender yourself to truth.
The first duty resulting from your surrender to truth is to be absolutely natural and objective, to guard yourself against preconceived ideas. Your mind should be receptive to whatever information is offered to it and should judge by the available evidence. Tilting the balance this way or that to suit your own side or to support a favourite theory is a serious denial of your highest vocation.
"The degree of intellectual honesty which is obligatory for me, by reason of my particular vocation, demands that my thought should be indifferent to all ideas without exception, whether I like them or not."
S.Weil, Waiting on God, Collins 1963, p. 50.
The mind should be like water which allows all kinds of objects to fall into it. Whether they float or sink to the bottom is not due to the water but to the weight of the objects themselves.
Give full attention by opening yourself.
Attention does not consist in physical effort, as many people think. It does not mean that your muscles tense or that your body goes rigid. Attention proceeds rather from a relaxation of all tensions, a laying aside of distractions, an opemng of the interior faculties so that they are reedy to receive truth.
Attention means extricating yourself from all prejudice, waiting with expectancy, listening carefully, longing to penetrate reality as it really is, not as we may imagine it to be.
"Attention consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty and ready to be penetrated by the object. It means holding in our minds, within reach of this thought, but on a lower level and not in contact with it, the diverse knowledge we have acquired which we are forced to make use of. Our thought should be, in relation to all particular and already formulated thoughts, as a man on a mountain who, as he Iooks forward, sees also below him, without actually looking at them, a great many forests and plains. Above all, our thought should be empty, waiting, not seeking anything, but ready to receive in its naked truth the object which is to penetrate it."
S.Weil, Waiting on God, Collins 1963, p. 72.
The mark of true genius is not natural intelligence but what we do with our intelligence. We do not reach the realm of truth unless we consciously raise our mind above what is superficial and deceptive. It is not natural disposition that will lift you to a higher plane of awareness' but a sincere effort to be open and to learn. It is concentrated 'attention' that leads you to truth and brings you to fulfilment.
"I have the everlasting conviction that any human being, even though practically devoid of natural faculties, can penetrate to the kingdom of truth reserved for genius, if only he or she longs for truth and perpetually concentrates all his/her attention upon its attainment."
S.Weil, Waiting on God, Collins 1963, pp. 30-31.
When I say "notice people", I mean: give people full attention.
Attention is a key concept in your relationship to people. You cannot really help another person unless you first understand him/her as he/she sees himself/herself, unless we give full attention to the other's unique personality. Few people have the charity to give another person such attention.
Simone Weil used to meditate endlessly on a line of the Iliad concerning the dead warriors who had been left unburied on the battle-field: "But they lay on the ground, dearer to the vultures than to their wives." Most people love in the same way as they eat: they feed on other people. When they no longer find anything to feed on in a person, they leave him or her to those who can still find something there to devour. The voracious 'love'of the vultures proves stronger than the worn-out love of the wives.
"Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention. The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have this capacity do not possess it. Warmth of heart, impulsiveness, pity are not enough ...."
"The love of our neighbour in all its fulness simply means being able to say to the other: 'What are you going through? ' It is indispensable to know how to look at that person in a certain way. This way of looking is first of all attentive. The soul empties itself of all its own contents in order to receive into itself the person it is looking at, just as he or she is, in all his or her truth. Only whoever is capable of attention can do this.''
S.Weil, Waiting on God, Collins 1963, p. 75.
We focus on God by giving full attention to ultimate reality in silent meditation. Attention is the heart of prayer.
"The key is the realisation that prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable towards God. The quality of the attention counts for much in the quality of the prayer. Warmth of heart cannot make up for it."
"It is the highest part of the attention which makes contact with God. When prayer is intense and pure enough for such a contact to be established, the whole attention is turned towards God."
S.Weil, Waiting on God, Collins 1963, p. 66.
It was also through this same attitude of attention that Simone, who was a convinced atheist, came to receive her experience of Christ Although she did not realise it at the time, her complete openness to truth in all its reality predisposed her for a person-to-person meeting with God. While she was attending the Holy Week ceremonies at Solesmes and listening with all her soul, and while she was reciting George Herbert's poem on 'Love', she was raising her mind to God by her attitude of attention. Christ responded by making his presence known to her.
Although Simone Weil accepted Christ, she did not want to be baptised. She is an unusual and controversial "saint".
Text from: JOHN WIJNGAARDS, Experiencing Jesus, Notre Dame, Indiana 1981.
