Gate 148: טפ — THE GATE OF

טפ

Pillar 6: THE PATH

ATTENTION

[148:1] "Be thou perfect, even as thy Father in heaven is

perfect."

[148:2] --- Matthew 5:48 (Tam = perfect/complete)

[148:3] "The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering

attention,

[148:4] over and over again, is the very root of judgment,

character, and will."

[148:5] --- William James

[148:6] "Where attention goes, energy flows."

[148:7] --- Contemporary saying

[148:8] [148:1] Attention is the rudder of consciousness. Where

you direct it, you go.

[148:9] [148:2] The Hebrew word Tam means complete, perfect,

innocent---whole. Attention is the capacity to be wholly present, to

gather the scattered mind into a single point. Without attention,

consciousness drifts at the mercy of stimuli; with attention,

consciousness can choose its focus and, thereby, its destiny.

[148:10] [148:3] Consider what attention does. Right now,

countless sensations are available---bodily feelings, background sounds,

visual periphery. You experience only what you attend to; the rest

remains subliminal. Attention is the selection mechanism that determines

which of infinite possibilities becomes actual experience.

[148:11] [148:4] Attention can be diffuse or concentrated.

Diffuse attention takes in the whole field without focusing on any

part---useful for detecting danger, appreciating beauty, sensing the

gestalt. Concentrated attention focuses on one object, excluding all

else---useful for analysis, learning, penetrating depth. The wise

alternate between them as needed.

[148:12] [FIGURE 148.1: A beam of light (attention) illuminating

one object in a dark room full of objects. What is lit is experienced;

what is dark is potential.] [148:5] Attention is trainable. This is

the good news of all contemplative traditions. The untrained mind

wanders constantly---William James called this the "stream of

consciousness," and it is more like a stream of distraction. But

through practice, attention can be strengthened, steadied, sharpened.

Meditation is, fundamentally, attention training.

[148:13] [148:6] The object of attention matters. Attend to fear

and fear grows; attend to peace and peace grows. "Where attention goes,

energy flows" is not mysticism but psychology. Neural pathways

strengthen with use; what you practice, you become. This is why

traditions emphasize what to contemplate: the divine, the good, the

true---not morbidly, but constructively.

[148:14] [148:7] Attention is the interface between will and

consciousness. You cannot directly will an experience (try to will

yourself to feel love), but you can direct attention (attend to what you

love, and love arises). The leverage point is not the experience itself

but the focus that precedes it. Master attention and you master much of

your inner life.

[148:15] [148:8] The modern world fragments attention. Screens

compete for it; notifications interrupt it; multitasking dissipates it.

The result is a pandemic of distraction---people physically present but

mentally absent, doing many things but none with full engagement. The

spiritual path is, in part, the recovery of attention from those who

would steal it.

[148:16] [148:9] Deep attention becomes absorption. When you

attend so fully to something that you lose self-consciousness, you

enter samadhi---a state where the boundary between observer and observed

dissolves. This is not loss of attention but its ultimate expression:

attention so complete that the one who attends merges with what is

attended to.

[148:17] [148:10] Practice: For one minute, attend fully to this

sentence. Notice when attention wanders (it will). Gently return it

(this is the practice). Each return strengthens the muscle. Over time,

the returns become faster, the wanderings shorter, the attention deeper.

This is the path of Tam---becoming complete, whole, perfectly present.

[148:18] See Also: • Gate 53: גס (Gas, "Coarse") --- The Gate of

the Witness (who attends) • Gate 64: דד (Dad, "Breast, Beloved") ---

The Gate of Perception (attention shaping perception) • Gate 152: טפ ---

The Gate of Meditation (attention practice formalized) • Gate 184: לס

--- The Gate of Beatitude (the fruit of perfect attention) End of Gates

146-148 Batch 17 Complete --- Pillar VI: The Path (Beginning) LIBER

TIGRIS Gates 149-151