Second Attention
October 7, 2009
Filed under Dharmanidhi, Featured Gallery
This practice should be performed both during seated sessions and throughout the day as your main method of integration meditation.
a. second attention as integration meditation – here you are attempting to maintain unbroken awareness of something while performing all of your normal daily activities, thus integrating the state of awareness with everyday life. You may use an awareness anchor from one of these categories: awareness of a body part or location in the body, awareness of a sensation in the body, awareness of embodying a virtue, awareness of the actions of the body, awareness of breathing, awareness of the texture of the breath, awareness of cakra, nådî, bindu or entire body as translucent light, awareness of “self” as indivisibly part of the mandala of inter-being, awareness of one of the 21 precepts of conduct, awareness of a mantra, awareness of the visual of your chosen deity or mahåsiddha in your heart, awareness of your guru’s image in your heart, awareness of the presence of the deity, mahåsiddha or guru in your heart with or without the visual image, awareness of a mantra, etc.
There are an infinite number of things to use for second attention practice but the most important point is to cultivate an unbroken experience of awareness. This awareness is vital for realizing “basic sanity” (directly experiencing all phenomena as transient appearances) and remaining sober (non-reactive to situations and people who either inflate or threaten your self-image). Second Attention is also important for preventing a loss of the energies of virtue accumulated through spiritual practice.
This practice is very challenging. In the beginning you will most likely find yourself forgetting second attention more than you remember it. This is normal. It usually takes the practitioner of lower and average capacity many years to attain unbroken second attention. The Kashmir Saivist meditation tradition says that even 5 minutes of unbroken second attention integration meditation is worth more than 3 years of practice in a cave! So do not be in a rush for mastery of the practice, but definitely be inspired to work at it as this may be one of the most important spiritual practices you will ever learn.
b. second attention as a seated meditation practice – in seated practice sessions you can practice second attention for various lengths of time. Your eyes can be either open or closed based on whichever allows for less distraction. With your eyes open you may be distracted by the visual environment, and sometimes with your eyes closed you may be distracted by incessant thoughts, images, dullness or drowsiness. Try to make the body very still and then bring awareness to the focus of your second attention. In the integration meditation using second attention, your primary attention is on whatever activity is occurring, ie. driving, walking, talking, thinking, etc. In the seated practice the primary attention is on being present in the moment. The primary attention of moment-presence is composed of awareness of the body’s position in meditation and on its sense of stability, openness, timelessness, etc. These should all be experienced as one primary attention. The moment-presence is the actual situation of sitting in its totality. Once this is invoked then invoke your second attention. When your awareness of the second attention drifts away simply bring it back to your chosen focus of second attention. If the primary awareness of moment-presence slips away, re-invoke that also.
If this seems too difficult because the primary attention on moment-presence is too subtle and illusive you may switch to using a method with a more tangible form for the primary attention such as a mantra or an object to gaze upon. Then you may invoke the sense of the body’s position, breath or presence as the second attention.
The seated version of second attention practice may be very challenging for the beginner. The key is not to strain or become frustrated. For this reason it is better in the beginning to perform shorter sessions. You may wish to start with a 1 or 2 minute session, or a series of 1 or 2 minute sessions with say 20 or 30 seconds of stretching in between. Eventually you want to expand your sessions to 5, 10 or even 15 minutes of unbroken second attention practice. 15 minutes of unbroken second attention practice is quite advanced and may take many years to achieve so make sure to be inspired to practice but without cultivating ambition.
