Concentration is Consecration

From Frazzledness to Consecration: the Practice of One-Pointed Attention

By Jodi Weisz, MLIS

In our digital age, there are so many things that break our attention. We feel a scattered brokenness by 7 AM in the morning! Sometimes we feel all we can do is shrug as we watch our young children eating a bowl of Fruit Loops with one hand, calling, with a full mouth, to a sibling, upstairs, about a Roblox maneuver, all the while balancing a perilously tilted Tablet, in their right hand, having left us for their favorite 3rd dimension: Minecraft. We ourselves are on our i-Phone, and so, there are not two people present in the same eat-in kitchen, sitting across the table from one another.

Running out the door on the way to school, our children turn to us, "Did you remember to sign me up for basketball today?" We are left speechless, "Why didn't our little digital genius bring this up while we were eating breakfast supposedly together? A nagging question slips into our mind: "My kid may appear to be a digital genius but am I helping her to be a life genius?"

Is scattered-ness our destiny? We long for the "we" when they sat in their high chair at the breakfast table.

The reason many of us experience so much stress in the digital age is: one-pointed attention or rather, a lack thereof. The digital world not only makes us scattered, it makes us less considerate, prone to the habits of impatience, distraction, and a lack of restraint. We are not present to attend to others, to take responsibility for our actions, to be in a satisfying relationship.

Being scattered makes us stuck in the past and/or worried about the future; it leads to mistakes. A scattered mind is prone to fear and anxiety. As Eknath Easwaran writes in his book, The Mantram Handbook, "One-pointed concentration is the mark of the person who is able to make a real contribution to any field he studies, to any task she tries her hand at."

This is what we all want for our children: a future in which they will be able to find a path to make a real contribution.

Easwaran continues, "When we are able to give our one-pointed attention to everything we do, other people cannot help responding deeply, no matter what the relationship; man and woman, parent and child, teacher and student, friend and friend."

This will be a new discipline for us. This will require practice. Fortunately, for us, Eknath Easwaran has authored dozens of books on this subject. In a gentle, understanding and light-hearted approach, he shows us another way. It is sadly remarkable that many of the issues first addressed by this author, in auditoriums filled with thousands of UC Berkeley college students over 30 years ago, are now front page news. I was fortunate to attend his lectures in the 1990's; now I see his foresight and astonishing wisdom. Back then, Easwaran would gently tease about distracted driving, (not doing it) and caution us against eating too many cashews while watching our favorite TV show. Today, we have epidemics such as: ADHD, the effects of violence in the media, a fear of a growing callousness in youth that has reached crisis levels.

The time has come for us to absorb a way out of our frazzled-ness; to be part of the solution--from our own consciousness. Three must read books this year that promise to return incalculable dividends, no matter the volatility index, are: Eknath Easwaran's, Meditation, Finding Balance in a Hurried World, and Your Life is Your Message. Just one of Easwaran's great lines: "Concentration is Consecration" leaves you acknowledging your inner hunger for one-pointed attention. Every time I re-read Easwaran's books, I realize I am still sitting in a highchair when it comes to attaining one pointed attention. But alas, a path of steady growth awaits all of us, thanks to this visionary teacher and Literature Professor to boot!

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Jodi L. Weisz, MLIS is an Adult Librarian at the Danbury Public Library who leads workshops and book discussion groups based on the writings of great American thinkers and contributors to social wellness. She is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champain, was the Henry Toops Scholar at the University of California at Berkeley, and a permanent member of Beta Phi Mu, the International Honor Society for Librarians. She reviews books that change people's lives. She can be reached at: jweisz@danburylibrary.org