As we sit down, we sit still with our back straight, we close our eyes and we try to say the mantra, and within seconds we find ourselves thinking about our problems, our shopping list, our fantasies. Our minds clearly are in a very untidy, untamed, wayward, and crazy state of distraction. And this is true even for people who, professionally, may have great powers of concentration, great powers of being able to focus on certain technical things – like a doctor or lawyer or somebody who is trained over many years to really focus or to use knowledge and skills in a very focused way. Even they will discover their minds are very distracted.
( Attention and Love 1 by Laurence Freeman OSB )
