To be aware is to watch your bodily activity, the way you walk, the
way you sit, the movements of your hands; it is to hear the words you
use, to observe all your thoughts, all your emotions, all your
reactions. It includes awareness of the unconscious, with its
traditions, its instinctual knowledge, and the immense sorrow it has
accumulated-- not only personal sorrow, but the sorrow of man. You
have to be aware of all that; and you cannot be aware of it if you
are merely judging, evaluating, saying, "This is good and that is
bad, this I will keep and that I will reject," all of which only
makes the mind dull, insensitive.
From awareness comes attention. Attention flows from awareness when
in that awareness there is no choice, no personal choosing, no
experiencing... but merely observing. And, to observe, you must have
in the mind a great deal of space. A mind that is caught in ambition,
greed, envy, in the pursuit of pleasure and self-fulfillment, with its
inevitable sorrow, pain, despair, anguish-- such a mind has no space
in which to observe, to attend. It is crowded with its own desires,
going round and round in its own backwaters of reaction. You cannot
attend if your mind is not highly sensitive, sharp, reasonable,
logical, sane, healthy, without the slightest shadow of neuroticism.
The mind has to explore every corner of itself, leaving no spot
uncovered, because if there is a single dark corner of one's mind
which one is afraid to explore, from that springs illusion...
It is only in the state of attention that you can be a light unto
yourself, and then every action of your daily life springs from that
light-- every action-- whether you are doing your job, cooking, going
for a walk, mending clothes, or what you will. This whole process is
meditation....
-- J. Krishnamurti
