Gee, Think.

In the books on meditation which I’ve been reading I’ve read about something called Bare Attention. From what I understand this is a sort of state of perception in which the mind works to observe phenomenon without attaching a self-centered perspective. I’ve also read about mindfulness of mind-objects, which means to be conscious of the things which come into your mind. I believe such examples would be desire, attachment, joy, but then again those could also be called feelings.

Today I’ve been trying to put this into practice. I had my first experience of what I think could be mindfulness of mind objects. I was walking home from the train station and on my way passed over a sidewalk made of colored stone slabs. They were alternating between turqouise and purplish-grey colors. This was such a stark contrast to the dull poured concrete that I thought to myself “This is so nice! What a great way to add a little variety to the mundane!” I followed the stones ahead, and noticed that they also continued up a straight path to a homeowner’s steps. Immediately I thought “I hope that when I own a home, I can have stones like this in front of my house.” My mind then jumped to how I might get stones like this for myself. “I wonder how much they cost, and where would I get them? Would I have to hire someone to place them?”

That’s when I caught my train of thought. I had jumped from simply admiring the asthetic appeal of the sidewalk to creating a fantasy of a future in which I owned a similar sidewalk for myself. I was surprised at how quickly my mind had jumped from one thing to the other. This all happened in the time it took me to take two steps down the sidewalk. For me, this was an example of how quickly my mind can run off on its own, following a tangent when it could be simpler to just admire the natural beauty in front of me. I think that noticing the tendency of my mind to jump ahead could eventually lead to a quieter and more focused state of mind.