Attention

"Layer after layer of civilized life seems to have veiled our directness of seeing. We often look for an underlying meaning of things while the thing itself is the meaning. Intellectual interpretation may hinder our intuitive insight. Here education should undo the damage and bring us back to receptive simplicity. It is obvious that a solely... See more

"Listening is something that gets more enjoyable the more you surrender to it. Exploring located sound has also made me a more attentive music listener. I think fine-tuning the ear makes you alert to other senses as well and that, if you let it, this could lead you to reflect on your perception and its limitations. Listening can be an exercise in... See more

"If you're going to listen, you have to be willing to be changed by what you've heard." (Gordon Hempton)

A monk once went to Ganesha, and wanted to learn where the entrance to the path of truth was.

Ganesha asked him, “Do you hear the murmuring of the brook?”

“Yes, I hear it,” answered the monk.

“There is the entrance.”

“The environment consists of opportunities for perception, of available information, of potential stimuli. Not all opportunities are grasped, not all information is registered, not all stimuli excite receptors. But what the environment affords an individual in the way of discrimination is enormous, and this should be our first consideration.”... See more

"The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. What is a day? What is a year? What is summer? What is woman? What is a child? What is sleep? To our blindness, these things seem unaffecting. We make fables to hide the baldness of the fact and conform it, as we say, to the higher law of the mind. But when the fact is seen... See more