Misplaced Attention

When we shift attention from experience to the spacious consciousness that knows- wisdom arises. - Jack Kornfield, A Wise Heart

If I had to name the drama of this past week of my life using the title of a popular TV show, it would be Lost. No, I was not lost; I have the GPS to keep track of where I am in the cosmos at any given moment. Over the course of the week, I ended up 'losing' my wallet and the book we are using in this series. Of course, my greatest concern was for the wallet, with its valuable contents of credit, membership cards, ids, etc. I went through the usual drill of retracing my steps from the last moment that I "had it" and narrowed down the possibilities of when and where the dispossession may have occurred. Of course, I looked in every conceivable place, many times over. The thought that I may have dropped it outside raised my concern that somebody may have found it and could be on their way to a carefree shopping spree.

Denese was the voice of prudent caution with a daily admonition to report the credit cards as lost. I resisted that notion because I had such a strong intuitive sense that it had not fallen into the hands of another, that it simply was somewhere safe in our home and that I just had not looked in the right place yet. By the end of the week, I still had not found the wallet and then the book, A Wise Heart, was missing. I knew that I'd had it the day before and hadn't taken it out of the house. This time though, with the frustration of the missing wallet still nagging me, I bypassed my intuition and went straight to judgment! I was convinced Denese had taken it (mistakenly) and I began rifling through her bookcase. Denese calmly assured me that she only had her copy and hadn't seen mine. I was not convinced and went back to her bookcase several times to be sure.

Well both dramas ended happily. Nathan spotted my wallet peeking out from behind the couch in our family room (where Denese and I had looked several times) and the book was found between the bed and my nightstand. Both items had fallen through the cracks into a place that I could not see, or at least a place where I did not look.

I was struck by the parallels between my losses of the material kind, and the manner in which I often lose my hold on spiritual truth. When we are connected to our true nature, when we are centered in Big Mind, we experience wholeness, and nothing is missing in us. But there are cracks in our awareness that we fall into and lose awareness of our wholeness. We go around with sense of incompleteness, looking for something to make us whole and happy. We look to others to blame for what's missing in us (suspecting Denese had my book) when in truth it is with me all the time. What never really leaves us is that intuitive sense that there is more to us, a treasure buried within us, that spark of the divine, which is capable of meeting all our needs. If we retain a state of mindfulness, when facing seeming losses in our life, it's possible to remain centered in an abiding sense of well being, be slow to judge, in trust that the indwelling presence will reveal its fullness in time. What seems to be missing turns out to be a case of misplaced attention. We seek and do not find, because we look amiss. When we change our perspective of loss, by panning out from the appearances, they diminish in significance, as we become aware of the larger context of wholeness in which we live and have our being.

As we practice mindfulness, it becomes easier to forestall the rush to panic or judge by the appearances of loss, remain in witnessing mode long enough to allow for the realization that Truth abides with us always.