I have been fortunate enough to be able to sit with my youngest son after he has had a bad dream. Besides just being there with him and comforting him with my presence, the fastest way to provide him with relief is to help him to recognize that " it was just a dream".
Helping him come to that understanding, while it doesn't provide 100% immediate relief, does help him start to settle down emotionally. The recognition that “it was just a dream" allows him to cut off over-involvement with the dream experience, helping him to stop investing anymore mental and emotional energy into the dream. The knowledge 'it's just a dream' cuts off over-involvement with the dream.
I remember playing soccer with my youngest son one afternoon. While I was enjoying the playfulness of the game, I was also teaching him about soccer, barbecuing a chicken, and keeping track of time so I could pick up my daughter. My son on the other hand, was completely lost in the game. There were even many moments when he was not enjoying the game at all, having completely forgotten "it's just a game". With a gentle reminder, "it's just a game", he was again able to enjoy himself. The knowledge 'it's just a game' cuts off over-involvement with the game.
I love movies, and I especially love sitting in a theatre. When the lights go down and the movie starts, there is a strange change that comes over everyone in the theatre. The change is this: everyone to some degree allows himself or herself to forget 'it's just a movie'. This is called a 'suspension of disbelief'. We 'buy in' to the movie, thereby allowing ourselves to be affected mentally and emotionally. We form bonds with the characters, allowing an empathetic connection to occur. We care, we fear, we hope, we imagine; we become emotionally invested in the story, all the while allowing ourselves to forget 'it's just a movie'.
The recognition 'it's just a movie', like the recognition 'it's just a dream' and "it's just a game" immediately cuts off that over-involvement. The knowledge 'it's just a movie' cuts off over-involvement with the movie.
The common factor in the three examples above is that when attention becomes passive, suffering occurs. We forget “it's just a dream/game/movie". 'Passive Attention' means we have, in a sense, fallen asleep, our attention is lost in mental activity, and we have become over-involved with experience.
We have become hypnotized or mesmerized by our experience, and have lost the critical skill of self-observation or detachment.
We are at the mercy of past conditioning and are living from a place of reactivity rather than responsiveness.
We have lost touch with the larger reality and are living from a smaller and less true identity.
To put it simply, our Life has shrunk to the size of whatever our attention has become lost in.
Awakened Attention on the other hand means there is energy in our attention, and that while the capacity to experience is fully available, there is also an accompanying sense of detachment. We have not lost contact with our sense of spaciousness and openness, and the capacity for self-observation remains intact. This kind of attention is awake and alert, and has an energetic responsiveness. This attention is stable, yet remains dynamic and fluid.
When we are living from an Awakened Attention, Life maintains it's mysterious and spontaneous nature, and we do not become over-involved with events, situations or experiences. This understanding, when introduced into our awareness, can have a transformative effect that reverberates through every waking moment of every dimension of our Life.
The Practice of maintaining an Awakened Attention moment to moment means that we are no longer caught off guard, succumbing to intense emotions caused by dramatic thought patterns (imagination/fantasy/negativity). With Awakened Attention even the most mundane activities are imbued with an alive and magical quality.
Most important, we begin to realize that when attention is active we are always already free, but that we become un-free when we fall asleep and attention becomes passive. With Awakened Attention, our nature is that of openness, spontaneity and humor, where even the most difficult experiences are seen as fleeting appearances floating inside the spaciousness of Awakened Attention.
It's just a dream. It's just a game. It's just a movie. It's just the mind. But are you awake enough to realize your freedom, or are you asleep and lost in the dream/game/movie/mind???
Practice: Learn to anchor your attention in the present moment. The breath is always happening now, and is a very good object of attention. Another excellent object of attention is the body, which is always experiencing now. Learning to keep attention in the present moment without thought is one of the surest ways of decreasing suffering and increasing happiness. This is the art and practice of Awakened Attention.
