Why Must You Pay Attention? To What?
The very moment that you become aware of the fact that you're not paying attention to your thoughts... you become aware of them. This is the most important attention you'll ever pay.
There was a time when I bought into the idea that I was ADD and/or ADHD. They constantly told me, that I'm not paying attention and that I have trouble paying attention. Attention to what? What are am I paying attention to? What is attention? What are we paying it to? Why can't the mind wonder? Where does understanding exist?
Inattentiveness is beautiful. And the very awareness to this inattention is attention. The only attention that matters is one my mind pays to itself, void of any form of control on my part. When I let the mind wander and pay attention whenever it needs to, things become clear.
There is no need to fight your mind. If you're reading or listening to something and your mind wonders, let it wonder. Whenever it becomes aware of the fact that it's not paying attention to itself, it becomes aware of itself and is able to see what it could not see before. There is no need to quiet your mind. Let it run free. Let it wander without restraint in your monkey bodies.
Peace comes from Order. Order of the mind does not come from some crazy pop-fad meditative practice. It comes from the true understanding of disorder. Once you truly understand why your mind is at unrest, you can rest.
Attention is the focus on a particular sensory channel. When you focus on certain sensory input channels, your mind, your body and emotions are not in total harmony. This is why it is impossible to 'pay' attention or be attentive. It fluctuates and goes in and out.
The mind will do as it pleases and to observe what it does is the key. Through rigorous exercise, you can train it so that certain methods or exercises become easier, but to simply observe the mind without attention and thought is simply ardous at best, yet as easy as pie.
What is attention? What is awareness?
Observation. Without any motivation of attention, awareness, and the desire for seeking an answer. To seek an answer is to be encumbered by desire and true observation cannot happen...
One must observe the mind in total darkness and silence of the sensory channels of input from the outside world. A disconnection from what you know to be reality. The only observation of the mind that is observable is when the observation happens without desire, without searching for an answer, without even an expectation of any outcome, without judgment, without motivation, without resentment and without the contamination of your own authentic ideas by the social and cultural conditioning and thought control of the dominator culture at large of the world.