I reread the first chapter of The Mind Illuminated this week: “The First Interlude”. In it, the author presents a mental framework for thinking about our goals in meditation. He breaks down our focus into two distinct parts: Active Attention and Passive Awareness.

“Active Attention” is your current focus. “Passive awareness” is the absorption of the sights, sounds, and sensations around you. Active attention can choose what to focus on from all the things in passive awareness (eg. how your food tastes), and passive awareness can elevate something to active attention (eg. your phone ringing).

From Yates’ perspective, the eventual goals are:

Choosing what to focus on and maintaining that focus even though your phone rings
Controlling the scope (how many things) you are actively paying attention to
Expanding the scope of your passive attention to broaden your perspective

Even after rereading this chapter, I still had no idea how to apply these ideas. So, I just let them marinate.

A Breakthrough

During my session on Wednesday, I was bitten by a sandfly. For those who don't know, sandfly bites are 10 times worse than mosquito bites. They hurt, then they hurt more, then they itch for 2 weeks. After the bite, it still felt like the bug was biting me so I kept opening my eyes to check. I tried using breathing techniques to block out the pain and itch but then something clicked: if the goal is to expand the scope of passive awareness then blocking out the discomfort is the wrong direction.

I realized that I had been using meditation and breathing techniques as a way to block out pain, discomfort, or distraction. For instance, when I had my eye surgeries last year, I used breathing techniques to take my mind off the fact that a surgeon was actively cutting my eyeballs open. But this is the opposite of the goals laid out in “The First Interlude”.

What Yates describes in “The First Interlude” is the expansion of your abilities to absorb and analyze, not a reduction. Reducing the scope of passive awareness, like I’ve been doing, creates blind spots and biases.

With that in mind, I stopped trying to block out the discomfort and instead accepted the fact that there wasn't anything to be done. Scratching the itch may provide 30 seconds relief but wouldn't make a difference. Once I accepted the sensation as part of my experience the discomfort diminished enough that it was no longer a distraction. With this reversal in my understanding of meditation, I realized what I want out of my practice.

A Realization

I can't focus when there is a TV nearby. If I can see or hear the TV my focus is entirely consumed by the flashing lights or dialogue. This lack of control is so thorough that I've been forced to adjust my life around it. When I go to restaurants, I trade places with other guests so that I can’t see the TV. Otherwise, I can't pay attention to the conversation and I'm terrible company.

The level of power that TV has over me has always bothered me but I never thought I could do anything about it. I have arranged my life to accommodate this personal inadequacy. Now, with the revelation above, I see a path toward regaining that power for myself. If I can gain the ability to focus despite this ultimate distraction, I will have substantially changed my life. This is the first specific goal I have for my practice.