Happy day to you, everyone!
This evening I’m scheduled to facilitate a local meditation and discussion group in West Asheville, which I’m very much looking forward to. The topic for the evening is “Our Relationship with Distraction”.
Our conditioned tendency to distract ourselves, of course, is something nearly everyone deals with and must practice with in order to maintain a conscious and heart-centered life. With this in mind, I thought I’d put this topic out to the larger sangha for consideration. I plan to offer this same topic on Thursday evening during our usual virtual group (7-8:30 eastern). In between now and then I invite you to look into your relationship with distraction, and if you feel moved to attend on Thursday evening we can talk about it then.
Here are some things to consider….
When I use the word ‘distraction’ I am not talking about the process of putting our attention on something that we choose that is not a part of our immediate physical reality, so long as the decision to put our attention on that thing is a conscious one. It is not a form of distraction, in other words, to listen to a podcast, to watch the news, or some other similar thing, so long as the listening or the watching is a conscious act and there is a motivation to be present with the thing attended to.
The word ‘distraction’ is more properly used to describe the process of giving one’s attention away. As we always say, if one is aware of one’s attention and one’s attention is here, in the moment, then that person is here, in the moment. If a person is not aware of their attention and their attention becomes lost in something that is not here, then that person has left the present moment. When we distract ourselves it is in order to abandon the present moment, and, commonly, to avoid dealing with some aspect of reality in the moment. If a person feels uncomfortable in the present, for example, because of the feelings that are there, and then if that person turns on a video or a podcast or some other thing in order to avoid experiencing those feelings, then I would say that person is distracting themselves.
According to that definition of distraction, then, here are some things you might consider over the course of the week….
1. When and how do you habitually distract yourself? Be honest with yourself about the level of distraction current in your life, and how you go about maintaining that level of distraction. Don’t forget that one form of distraction is obsessive thinking, so it doesn’t have to necessarily involve some external mechanism, though of course it often does.
2. What is your motivation when you distract yourself? There are going to be both overt and unconscious motivations involved in anything we do, of course. For example, your overt motivation in turning to YouTube or Netflix might be the pleasure of the thing you’re going to watch, whatever that might be. I’m not so much interested in these overt motivations, however, which actually are just the excuses we use in order to justify our behaviors. More interesting and helpful are the unconscious motivations. What are you trying to get away from? What do you wish to avoid experiencing? What realities do you not want to face? Like that.
3. What do you actually get from distraction? There’s what you tell you yourself that you will get (or, more exactly, what conditioned mind tells you you will get whenever it offers a distraction to you), then there’s what you actually get. What do you actually get?
4. How else might you meet the need that you’re attempting to meet through distraction?
If you’re up for it, I’d suggest that you pay attention to your relationship with distraction over these next few days, and perhaps make some notes in the evenings about what you’ve seen. And then, as I’ve offered, if you’d like to participate in a discussion about this with the sangha on Thursday, I’d love to see you there.
Be well as always, friends, take good care of yourselves, and do good work!
In peace,
David
Ps, if you’d like to join in on Thursday but do not have the necessary zoom information, just let me know and I’ll provide it for you.