What is Attention?

Simply put, attention is focused awareness. Paying attention to your attention is the first step to understanding it.

Put a pen on a table about one foot away in front of you. Gently focus on the pen. Right now the center of your attention is on the pen. Visually look around the room so that eventually the pen is not in your visual field, and while you are doing this keep that centered connection on the pen by periodically wondering about the pen.

You may experience a sense of an extension from your body to the pen. That extension is your attention. What you may also notice is that paying attention to the pen while you are looking at other things is not so easy. Your attention may have been distracted by something being out of order in the room or by something else interesting. In this simple paying attention to your attention exercise, you can see how easily it can be distracted.