The Joyful Journey: Paying Attention

Welcome to The Joyful Journey

This is installment #3 in our series and builds on the invitation of the previous blog: The Art of Noticing: Finding Joy in the Details

If your prefer to listen to the Joyful Journey, click the play button below!

Paying attention can be quite hard! 

No matter how often we tell ourselves, “I should be mindful!” we can still find ourselves walking along absorbed in our thoughts, and then noticing that we have forgotten where we are going. We misplace things. We nod and say, “Uh huh” even when we have paid no real attention to what our loved ones are talking about. Sometimes when we are doing something we have looked forward to, like going to a beautiful place, or eating a favorite food, we don’t get the joy we anticipated because our minds simply wander away. . .

There is a traditional Buddhist teaching about attention we learn at Jhamtse. The teaching compares our attention to four “pots.”  (Lobsang Phuntsok substitutes these for drinking glasses):

  • The first glass is turned bottom up. Nothing can get in.

  • The second glass has some residue at the bottom. What is poured in is distorted, losing its original essence.

  • The third glass has a hole. What is poured in rushes right through.

  • The fourth glass is upright, clean, and intact. We can experience what is poured into it exactly as it is, and be nourished by its freshness.

At Jhamtse, we try to be the fourth glass. Yet. . .  paying attention is hard. Rather than immediately jumping to criticize ourselves when we notice our attention isn’t what it “should” be, we can notice exactly how it is. 

We might be the first glass: mulling over one of our “go-to” topics, emotionally reliving some other part of our day, or anticipating something coming next. 

We might be the second glass: listening with an agenda, thinking about what we want to say, grabbing onto part of an interaction and adding it to our own storyline.

We might be the third glass: feeling tired, bored, or just “zoning out.”

Noticing which glass we are helps us to gently bring our attention back to this moment, this precious moment where our lives are unfolding... In this way we can take a drink from the fourth glass.

We may find that paying attention reveals the extraordinary within the ordinary.

Which glass are you now?

And now? …

The Joyful JourneyDarren Roth