The First Attention, Part II

 

The first attention begins in the body. 

This is the grounding force from which life builds itself into Intelligence, Feeling, and Being. 

If it’s not grounded in sensation, I become a balloon without a string that ties me to the railing. The balloons are either filled with air and bounce on the ground in any direction the wind blows them; or they are filled with helium and drift off into the sky, again, wherever the wind blows them. A balloon needs some helium in it to rise vertically and strive for something higher; but it needs to be tied down or it’s lost.

So when I talk about a work that always begins again, the question is what the beginning is. 

I put this to some folks last night and they all talked about where work begins for almost an hour and never mentioned the sensation once. There were one or two members in this gathering who know how meaningful this question is, but one of them was absent and the other one is reticent. So no one brought the question of sensation in the way that it needs to be brought already, in every situation, at every moment. 

My sensation should never leave me.

My understanding of work should begin with that.

If  I'm working in such a way that I say to myself, “now I’ll sense my right hand,” or, “now I will sense my feet on the ground,” this is a good beginning, but it’s not real sensation. It’s just practicing. Real sensation is alive and does not need to be instructed to come into the moment, and this is what I need to be full of. 

The filling exercise was about acquiring the material for this, which depends to some extent on the breathing of air and the taking in of finer substances in it. These substances need to be concentrated in the body over a long period of time until a critical mass is reached in which sensation becomes permanent.

This matter is generally treated as some kind of a secret in the work, but because most of the older people in the work are now dying, certain things need to be written down and explained quite precisely so that there is at least some form of written record. It is clear enough that those able to pass this work on verbally — which is the most important task, of course, and the only really vital one — are dwindling. Perhaps most of what is left will end up being available only in written form, and if no one writes precisely or clearly, important understandings may be lost.

I was challenged by someone about why I don’t teach them the filling exercise. 

The answer to this is simple: I don’t know this exercise exactly as Gurdjieff taught it. 

What I understand is the results of the exercise; I don’t just understand the results of the exercise, I understand the aim of it. There are times when one can’t understand anything about where one is going unless the destination is made specific, is described. Organic sensation of being is the destination of the exercise. In a certain sense, this exercise can be undertaken in a thousand different ways — but only from with in life, from where we are now. It involves the first attention, the attention of sensation within the moment. The awareness of a breath, the capacity to stop in the midst of everything without anyone seeing it happen in you and saying, “here I am” with the body — not the intellect.

Perhaps I should mention that it's never the exercise itself that brings "results." It is the understanding imparted from the exercise that may bring results—later, perhaps much later. Exercises are temporary signposts on the way to Being. Not filling stations for my gas tank. 

Perhaps it’s useful to just begin here with this concept of the first attention. Much of our inner potential rests in this piece of territory.

On behalf of our search for inward relationship,

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola magazine.