"Folding everything back into the attention" means an ongoing process of noticing and allowing, allowing and noticing my consciousness. It is a process of not trying to make anything happen, not manufacturing, not forcing, not inhibiting, not holding on, and simply noticing and allowing. Deepak Chopra described this meditative mindful process of paying attention as similar to watching the clouds in the sky pass by without getting attached to any cloud, not trying to make anything out of it, not obsessing over it, and simply allow and notice them. It does happen that I get invested in some cloud, ie, some thought or awareness, or go off into thinking/confabulating/ruminating triggered by some thought or awareness, and when I become aware of that, I hope to have the same attitude of allowing and noticing it, not beat myself up over it, and allow to pass both what I became attached to and my awareness of becoming attached. I develop ability to not beat myself up by acceptance -- accepting that I have a monkey mind, like most of us humans have, and by having a noticing and allowing attention I become less often captured by that monkey mind, I let it pass, and I and it slow down. My monkey mind seems to be most active when I wake up at 3 in the morning, and I'm still not very good at staying free of it, but I am more aware and learning.
On Jan 13, 2013 david doane wrote :