Build Your Nest
As many of you know, one of our sangha members (Thomas) is currently sitting a month-long retreat taught by Ajahn Sucitto at the Forest Refuge (in Barre, MA). I’ve been listening to the talks from that retreat, which is a great practice in itself.
At the end of one my favorites of these talks, Sucitto says this about instructions to ‘place your attention’ in meditation:
“Generally we associate doing things with ‘doing it to get it done’ and ‘doing it to get good results’ and ‘doing it because you are to be measured and assessed in terms of how well you did it.’…
“Those attitudes are disastrous. [laughs] Truly disastrous. And if you keep putting that into your body, repeatedly [heavy sigh], it’s going to be pretty painful. It’s not a cooperative mode, if that’s what’s understood by the instruction to ‘place attention’.
“Attention is a natural faculty of mind. It’s one of the inevitable faculties. However erratic it may be, we always have attention. What we need to do is to get that little bird of attention to rest on something suitable. If you create the right nest and put the right food in it, that little bird’s gonna sit there, ‘cuz it likes it. [delighted laughter]
“So you just…Build your nest. Put the food in the nest with devotion. And then…may it be!”
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Click here to listen to the talk. It’s a keeper.