Attention is not the same as concentration. Fr John points this out in much of his teaching. He said it is not about sitting there furrowing your brow, and really trying hard to say your mantra even if it is going to kill you. That is not attention. In fact, it just increases your stress. And you know, some people say, ‘Oh, I get very stressed when I meditate. My neck gets very tight and, you know, I can’t move…’ We have to make clear there is this distinction between attention and obsessive concentration. Both John Main and Simone Weil describe this in their own ways but very clearly. We are very conscious today of attention deficit, particularly among the young, but not only the young. But it is particularly painful to observe in the young because it is as if they are trying to make contact, they are trying to accept the gift of life, they are trying to break out of their private worlds, out of their Facebook worlds, out of their private memories. They are trying to break out, to spread their wings, to live. And yet so often with the young today, you feel that there has been a contraction, not an expansion.
( Attention and Love 1 by Laurence Freeman OSB )
