Wide vs. narrow attention

Adam , modified 11 Years ago at 10/23/12 7:31 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 10/23/12 7:29 PM

Wide vs. narrow attention

Posts: 613 Join Date: 3/20/12 Recent Posts
What are the pros and cons of wide vs. narrow attention?

The only one I am sure of from my own experience is that with narrow focus such as on the breath there is more continuous presence whereas there is a sense of genuine liberation in the fleeting milliseconds where I actually maintain the non-focused, non-wandering attention. If I had to pick one to gain improve the clarity, objectivity, equanimity and that kind of stuff the fastest, which would it be? I've done plenty of experimenting with both but I really am not sure. Narrow focus seems to suppress things temporarily but I don't know if it is really doing much in terms of permanent change.
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland, modified 11 Years ago at 10/23/12 8:01 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 10/23/12 8:01 PM

RE: Wide vs. narrow attention

Posts: 296 Join Date: 9/5/10 Recent Posts
Oh man. The first thing I thought when I saw the name of this thread was: there's so much about that buried deep in this forum.

I'm currently kind of working on a system to free communication on the internet of the limitations that become apparent by what I said above.

I don't have much more than that to add at this time. Sorry emoticon
This Good Self, modified 11 Years ago at 10/23/12 8:16 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 10/23/12 8:16 PM

RE: Wide vs. narrow attention

Posts: 946 Join Date: 3/9/10 Recent Posts
I think the end goal of all absorption practice is very wide focus. KFD's 'chicken herding' analogy is a very skillful bit of instruction, but I think there's still some aspect missing from it because I can't do it very well. In it he says start off narrow and gradually widen. The wider and and more diffuse the attention, the deeper the absorption, better the experience. You can still be focused in a wide and diffuse manner. I have had glimpses of 1st stage, but that's it. Usually I'm interrupted by some extremely vivid image vaulting up from my unconscious.

To me, absorption meditation is about using the attention to forcibly suppress the voice of the ego. That's why it's pleasurable and healing. I guess another approach would be to examine those parts of the ego that are causing particular difficulty and replace them with more positive scripts, as in with hypnotherapy.
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Jeff Grove, modified 11 Years ago at 10/24/12 12:57 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 10/24/12 12:53 AM

RE: Wide vs. narrow attention

Posts: 310 Join Date: 8/24/09 Recent Posts
Hi

You may find the following about broad/narrow and internal/external states of attention interesting

http://www.navaching.com/hawkeen/atten.html

it discusses the connection between attention states and emotion and a method to gain conscious control over our involuntary nervous system

I use peripheral vision with my togel practices and even walking around this way alters the way I interact with the world.
I can relate to the above website when they write of tribal cultures uses of these states syntactic awareness and the information available from these sensing abilities
Worth reading all of
http://www.navaching.com/hawkeen/hawkindex.html

cheers
Jeff
Adam , modified 11 Years ago at 10/24/12 2:50 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 10/24/12 2:50 PM

RE: Wide vs. narrow attention

Posts: 613 Join Date: 3/20/12 Recent Posts
whoa very nice jeff I am going to read all this stuff i think

here are a couple excerpts from the 'night walking' article which is my favorite one so far... the whole site is cool

After a couple of hours of walking we were deeply relaxed. It took us a while to understand the source of this pronounced calm: Walking while relying on peripheral vision requires that the conscious mind trust the nonconscious, and this inter-mind trust might be the essence of relaxation itself.


This was it, the central metaphor for accessing the peripheral state--an act of faith. To reach the state, one has to let go of reliance on central vision, on “knowing” where you're going, and come to trust that unknowable brain and eye functions will guide and protect. Without such faith we stumble.


A few weeks into our walking experiments and we knew we were on to something important, maybe profound. We'd found that simply walking outdoors with eyes focused on the tip of a little metal rod, seeing where we were going by moving our attention rather than our eyes, resulted in an altered state of consciousness. No drugs, no mantras or rigorous meditative practices. Simply clip on a rod and take a walk. Eventually we discovered that we didn't even need the rods. All it takes is the suggestion, "Go wide," and everything opens up--mood, perspective, vision in every sense of the word. Change the way you see and you change the way you feel.

After twenty or thirty minutes of walking, we'd click into an ecstatic state of "no thought." The mind got absolutely quiet and the body filled with the uncensored, unconsidered sights, sounds and smells of the New Mexico landscape. Distinctions between "me" and "it" evaporated as we reentered the state, which felt natural and oddly familiar, as if in our dim evolutionary history there had been a time when our brains were wired for joy.


Waiting for full darkness, we stopped and looked ahead at the loom of Tres Orejas mountain, back at Taos beginning to twinkle. Then we set out into the black and then it happened!

The most accurate description is that we entered the night. It became alive. Rabbits hopped by casually, nighthawks and bats flew past to check us out. Our steps got lighter, walking approached the status of flight, and we felt like we'd fully entered the peripheral state, much more deeply than before. If there were snakes out there, we would pass safely among them. We moved through lovely currents of cool air that wave through the desert. We smiled at the thought of what we were doing-- walking effortlessly in the night under the stars, with no conscious knowledge of what was on the path in front of us, no consciousness of anything but the feeling of everything.

We could have been flying it was so much fun. For uncountable time our gaze expanded as if we saw the path and the landscape, the sagebrush and scrubby juniper as clearly as if a third eye were set in the middle of the chest. For a moment we wondered where we were and the direction back to the truck and then let that go and put ourselves in the arms of another part of ourselves. Suddenly we "knew" we were back at the truck. Without consciousness of "seeing" it, we knew that it was there, five or six body lengths to our left, standing in some deep night shadows. We laughed and then looked. Sure enough, it was there.

Almost immediately NightWalking became one of the most consistently relaxing and exhilarating experiences either of us had ever had. The reports, ancient and modern, were true--employing peripheral vision and "second sight" facilitates a distinct change in perception while promoting a serene sense of well-being. We discovered that anxiety in general, and fear of the dark in particular, are effectively eliminated, as if they were somehow related to the brain processes of central vision. We learned to see by moving our attention around in the visual field and found that with this kind of attention management we could ameliorate pain and discomfort by shifting our attention away from it and onto anything else in the whole field of sensory perception.


Then we stopped, knowing we were back at the truck, again before we were conscious that the truck was indeed there, before we "saw" it. Is this normally the case, that we "know" things before we're conscious of knowing them? Is it possible that consciousness is merely a monitor of--or a comment on--our nonconscious responses to the world and ourselves?

As Daniel C. Dennett writes in Consciousness Explained, "Only a theory that explained conscious events in terms of unconscious events could explain consciousness at all."

The more we walked, the more we questioned the supremacy of consciousness. We came to believe that, ironically, peripheral vision was making us more conscious of what we were not conscious of, the particulars contained in that huge, mysterious mass of neurons, like a computer that is making decisions and judgements on its own. The brain doesn't need the 'me' of conscious thought to operate--in fact, it often seems to operate much better without the intervention of consciousness. It was--and still is--a sobering and sometimes unsettling realization, though most often it leaves us wide-eyed with wonder, a wonder comparable to walking on faith in the dark across the New Mexico landscape.


One can't remain depressed while employing peripheral vision.
Schwags, modified 11 Years ago at 10/24/12 5:24 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 10/24/12 5:24 PM

RE: Wide vs. narrow attention

Posts: 9 Join Date: 6/19/10 Recent Posts
Thanks for sharing this Jeff!

It seems obvious now, but this excerpt from that website really cleared up a big question I've had:
Usually, pain is experienced as a narrow perception; we know right where it hurts. Pleasure, general well-being and relaxation, on the other hand, tend to be very broad diffuse sensations. We find the question, “Where, exactly, do you feel wonderful?” somewhat odd because wonderful is a broad sensation. A substantial amount of relief from pain can be achieved simply by shifting from KIN (Kinesthetic Internal Narrow) to KIB (Kinesthetic Internal Broad)


A good practice to this end is kenneth folk's "listening for ships in the harbor" I've found it's good balance for when insight practice or speedy noting gets too tight or seems confined.

btw I noticed only the cached version of the website comes up without graphics, but it's still useful with text only
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Nikolai , modified 11 Years ago at 10/25/12 12:51 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 10/25/12 12:46 AM

RE: Wide vs. narrow attention

Posts: 1677 Join Date: 1/23/10 Recent Posts
Interesting stuff.

I think the wide approach is progressive.

http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/yogi-toolbox-effective-combination.html
http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/yogi-experiment-peripherycentre.html


"He keeps perceiving what is in front and behind so that what is in front is the
same as what is behind, what is behind is the same as what is in front. What
is below is the same as what is above, what is above is the same as what is
below. (He dwells) by night as by day, and by day as by night. By means of
an awareness thus open & unhampered, he develops a brightened mind."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn51/sn51.020.than.html


"The Blessed One said: "Now what, monks, is five-factored noble right concentration? There is the case where a monk — quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful qualities — enters and remains in the first jhana: rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought and evaluation. He permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal.

"Just as if a skilled bathman or bathman's apprentice would pour bath powder into a brass basin and knead it together, sprinkling it again and again with water, so that his ball of bath powder — saturated, moisture-laden, permeated within and without — would nevertheless not drip; even so, the monk permeates, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of withdrawal. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal. This is the first development of the five-factored noble right concentration.

"Furthermore, with the stilling of directed thoughts & evaluations, he enters and remains in the second jhana: rapture and pleasure born of composure, unification of awareness free from directed thought and evaluation — internal assurance. He permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of composure. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born of composure.

"Just like a lake with spring-water welling up from within, having no inflow from east, west, north, or south, and with the skies periodically supplying abundant showers, so that the cool fount of water welling up from within the lake would permeate and pervade, suffuse and fill it with cool waters, there being no part of the lake unpervaded by the cool waters; even so, the monk permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of composure. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born of composure. This is the second development of the five-factored noble right concentration.

"And furthermore, with the fading of rapture, he remains equanimous, mindful, & alert, and senses pleasure with the body. He enters & remains in the third jhana, of which the Noble Ones declare, 'Equanimous & mindful, he has a pleasant abiding.' He permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the pleasure divested of rapture, so that there is nothing of his entire body unpervaded with pleasure divested of rapture.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.028.than.html


Chek the Anapanasati sutta instructions. Wide seems to be the theme.

Apperceptiveness is very much like what one sees with one’s peripheral vision as opposed to the intent focus of normal or central vision....this moment of soft, ungathered sensuosity – apperceptiveness – contains a vast understanding, an utter cognisance, that is lost as soon as one adjusts one’s mind to accommodate the feeling-tone...in the process of ordinary perception, the apperceptiveness step is so fleeting as to be usually unobservable.One has developed the habit of squandering one’s attention on all the remaining steps: feeling the percept, emotionally recognising the qualia, zealously adopting the perception and getting involved in a long string of representative feeling-notions about it. When the original moment of apperceptiveness is rapidly passed over it is the purpose of ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ to accustom one to prolong that moment of apperceptiveness.

http://actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/attentivenesssensuousnessapperceptiveness.htm
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland, modified 11 Years ago at 10/27/12 12:16 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 10/27/12 12:15 PM

RE: Wide vs. narrow attention

Posts: 296 Join Date: 9/5/10 Recent Posts
Jeff Grove:

Wow. Just wow. So many pieces are falling into place. I dunno what to say. Do you happen to have more stuff like this?
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Martin M, modified 11 Years ago at 10/28/12 4:26 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 10/28/12 4:26 AM

RE: Wide vs. narrow attention

Posts: 91 Join Date: 9/3/09 Recent Posts
awesome site, thanks Jeff!

just one of the excellent quotes that resonated with me:


Is this normally the case, that we "know" things before we're conscious of knowing them? Is it possible that consciousness is merely a monitor of--or a comment on--our nonconscious responses to the world and ourselves?

As Daniel C. Dennett writes in Consciousness Explained, "Only a theory that explained conscious events in terms of unconscious events could explain consciousness at all."

The more we walked, the more we questioned the supremacy of consciousness. We came to believe that, ironically, peripheral vision was making us more conscious of what we were not conscious of, the particulars contained in that huge, mysterious mass of neurons, like a computer that is making decisions and judgements on its own. The brain doesn't need the 'me' of conscious thought to operate--in fact, it often seems to operate much better without the intervention of consciousness. It was--and still is--a sobering and sometimes unsettling realization, though most often it leaves us wide-eyed with wonder, a wonder comparable to walking on faith in the dark across the New Mexico landscape.


http://www.navaching.com/hawkeen/nwalk.html

will give it a try; seems the short days of winter time might proof useful after all emoticon
Change A, modified 11 Years ago at 10/28/12 11:27 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 10/28/12 10:14 AM

RE: Wide vs. narrow attention

Posts: 791 Join Date: 5/24/10 Recent Posts
Jeff Grove:
Worth reading all of
http://www.navaching.com/hawkeen/hawkindex.html

cheers
Jeff


I tried their mind juggling technique and found it to be useful. It is also interesting that they consider feelings and kinesthesia to be same. Also, they say that it is important and central to Hawkeen Training to realize that thoughts are represented in sensory (Visual/Auditory/Kinesthetic) modes.

The whole experience of happiness rests directly on two of the twelve states, KIN and KIB. (http://www.navaching.com/hawkeen/atten.html)

I think this is how Goenka meditation produces happiness. In the beginning of the retreat, meditator has a narrow focus and by the end, it becomes broader as one gets into flow sweeping.

Thanks for the link.
Andre d, modified 11 Years ago at 10/28/12 4:34 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 10/28/12 4:34 PM

RE: Wide vs. narrow attention

Posts: 9 Join Date: 2/22/12 Recent Posts
I usually prefer a narrow attention mainly on one object (the rising and falling of the abdomen).
I feel that it makes it easier for me to see the permanent and uncontrollable change of "the object" due to a diligent observation (for example: the change of form and feeling in the first place) furthermore it is a good way to observe the mind itself and how it react according to the momentary manifestation of the object (for example happiness, aversion or a "wanting" to change the characteristic of the object)

If I am working with a wide attention then it is more to see how things unfold by itself (arising and passing away). It is more like a
lay back thing, where everything is happening by itself and the object and its manifestation doesn't matter so much.

I also use wide attention If my mind is very busy and it is difficult to stay on the primary object. ("Sort of", I use the busyness itself as the object.)


however, I guess it depends on the person and the situation.
some people prefer the diligent observation of only one object (rising and falling of the abdomen, contemplation of the respiration,....) and other people prefer a mere observation.
I am not really sure what you mean by "suppress things", but you don't.
If one is aware of the suppressing, then one is aware of the object he is suppressing as well, isn't he?!


andre