Attention and Prayer
Whenever my attention is not being devoured by everything that is built to seduce it, I’m thinking about attention. I’ve spent a good part of today listening to podcasts, watching videos, and doomscrolling. Actually, I’ve been waiting for somebody to text me, but I’ve tried my best not to think about that. For the longest time, I’ve been under the yoke of my own attention span. In school, I was always drawing or talking in class instead of listening, and I was often sent to the principal’s office because of this. I remember sitting on this cold, hard metal bench in front of his office for what felt like eternities, while my head was going at 100 km/h. Then, when I went home I would lose myself in all sorts of books for hours on end, forgetting to eat and drink, not hearing when my mother called – a state of almost otherworldly focus. I’ve always been controlled by the fancies of my own attention.
My mom is a kind of Buddhist, that uses a 12th century Japanese mantra to pray: Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō (tr. I submit myself to the mystical law of the Lotus Sutra). This mantra has stuck with me forever, and it has been a source of both reverence and annoyance throughout my upbringing. It bolted back into my mind after listening to the song ”Sha” by Ugly (UK), where the mantra is repeated a number of times, just like my mom does when she prays. Within Christianity there is a similar tradition called hesychasm (tr. quietness), which is a contemplative monastic tradition originating from the eastern orthodox monasteries of Mount Athos. A typical mantric prayer used by hesychasts is the Jesus Prayer: ”Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱέ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με, τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν.” (tr. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.) The mantra is repeated either verbally or mentally, with the rhythm of the hesychast’s breath, continually throughout the day. I think the use of mantra to pray, like the hesychastic tradition of the monks of Athos, or my mom’s Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō is a kind of mastery of attention. My problem, however, is that neither of these prayers speak into my own theology. The Jesus Prayer is a prayer of judgment – a moral prayer with sin and mercy in focus. This can be useful from an ethical standpoint, but does not coincide with my personal vision of prayer. Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō speaks into my own mystic understanding of religion – I submit myself to the mysteries of the universe. However, it is undergirded by a religious scripture and tradition, which doesn’t belong to me. It feels empty to submit myself to the Lotus Sutra, when it does not encompass my theology.
Christian mystic Simone Weil writes ”absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” It’s another type of attention, than the one I experience when I read. I think the type of attention called prayer exists only in the senses, not in the mind. Absolutely unmixed attention is not just meditation and contemplation, it also exists within the relation between the body and the world. Labour is unmixed attention. Unmixed attention is experiencing waves billowing back and forth. It is feeling the rhythm of your steps, your heartbeat and your breath on a long walk. This reminds me of the benedictine motto ora et labora (tr. pray and work) and how the comingling of these two properties, body and soul, create a specific type of attention that is essentially divine. I think the purpose of mantra is that it quietens the mind, by flooding it with the word. It is a way of using our own body to ground our attention in the spoken word, and the flow of our own breath.
This leads me back to my enthralled attention span once again. Even though it has always been like this, I feel like everything is constructed to fuck with my attention span lately. Lately meaning in a steady increase for the last 10 years, like a crab in a pot being slowly brought to a boil from room temperature. These days, I am working on finding a practice of prayer that I can call my own, to ground my theology in a practice that works for me. When my attention is weaponised against me, it is only through attention that I can liberate myself. For now it is purely silent and sensual, but I hope to find the right words sometime soon.