What is your priority in this moment? (and maintaining a touchstone)
If a person does this “litmus test” of asking oneself *What is my priority at this moment?”, it can easily uncover where ones focus (or lack of focus) is at a given moment ….. it can also uncover what one is currently fixated on….. (like a frog’s tongue sticking to something) It can also show how what we are doing, has “scattered” our focus.
So, i am going to suggest that staying collected and centered in our focus, is far more important than what we are focusing ON.
What came out of this line of thinking, this a.m., was:
“Whatever we do, stay centered in the midst of it…… stay present and centered….. attentive…… “
This could then be called, “Practicing life attentively”
This is perhaps a better method to reply to the question of “What frame of mind should one keep themselves in throughout the day”….. as we all know that trying to keep one frame of mind throughout the day is nigh unto impossible….. as well as being very limiting and constricting….. and pressurizing……
So i am suggesting having a “touchstone”.
A friend and i, a while back, were discussing the difference between feeling “scattered” and being “focused” or “collected”….
If you are “scattered” in this moment….. it carries with it a sense of being lost….. or muddled…. confused or unsure…..then “coming back to center” can mean that you find that place that feels (has a sense of) centered and focused……. attentive and calm…. (like a hero in the midst of any situation)
This touchstone may not be clear to some folks …… then where is our “anchor”?
Finding and maintaining that “touchstone” is why having a quiet time each day, to “get a bead” on what “centered” MEANS ….. is so important. Our sense of this centeredness grows and becomes more clear and evident, the more we return to that quiet place….. and make it our reference point (touchstone) ….. as this sense will grow and deepen, if we try to hold onto some fixed concept of what centeredness “was”, it will keep things from maintaining a “current and functional” sense, as it inhibits that growing clarity…… that sense of centeredness and what it means can also fall into disuse, when we do not keep it active and “current” with some form of “quiet time”……
Using that time every day, we can come back to that unhurried, calm, quiet place, where we sense our center is…… and then we can refer back to it throughout the day….. it can become our “anchor”….. our “benchmark of the day”….. so to speak….
Going out into our day, and doing “stuff” then is then no longer a “interruption” in our peace….. doing stuff then becomes the place where we practice our centeredness……
For our Christian brothers, one might say it is like “putting God in your back pocket, He goes where you go….. 🙂 ) Then it does not restrict our way of thinking to some moralistic “go here but don’t go there”, but rather it cam become practicing centeredness WHEREVER we go…… in WHATEVER we do….. 🙂
Reality is Dharma 