Notes From October 12

 

Notes from Tuesday, October 12.

There's always chaos around me; the only difference is that with attention, I'll notice it. 

Without it I begin to dream that things are organized and might go the way I want them or expect them to.

Sometimes I need to use force within myself for my aim. The question is, when should I do this, and how? There are times when concentration needs to be mustered with a greater effort because of some specific situation. I should be prepared for that.

There’s more than one attention in me; to speak of “attention” as though it were a single thing is absurd. There are multiple attentions in me, among them specifically an attention of thought, an attention of the body, an attention of feeling. The moment that I speak casually of attention and don’t understand the different attentions as individual entities, I mush everything together and I'm unable to understand within myself whether I am thinking, sensing, or feeling. 

My work is characterized by such laziness because I refuse to focus when I need to.

When everything is mushed together, identification is the result. The attention of the body, however— provided it is developed — is not so easily subject to identification.

It’s useful to avoid thinking about the work. I should just do it. Allow the psychology, but avoid confusing it, mixing it in. 

I move from one point to the next in an ordinary way, attending to duty, awaiting what comes next. 

I need to see the way in which my functions and my consciousness are different things. 

Again, if I don’t discriminate, if I'm not specific, I’m always confused and I think that my functions are conscious. They want me to believe this, because each of the functions is a machine programmed to get its own way if it isn’t supervised.

with warm regards,

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola magazine.