Especially when considered in isolation, a detail can be a discreet part of a painting, a decorative flourish or a shadow cast against a white wall. It can be an elaborated element of a design or a single moment in an ordinary day. We may think in generalities, but we often live in the messy, voluptuous crevasses of details.
Paying attention to details requires awareness and a practice of awareness challenges us to take time each day to simply be alone and listen to the inner voice of our authentic selves. When the intuitive mind is allowed to roam free, it produces an extraordinary awareness without the filters of conceptual thinking. Suddenly, our secret yearnings and dreams rise to the surface, our forgotten joys remembered.
Focused attention to the present moment is at the heart of Buddhism. It is called mindfulness. Mindfulness helps us not only smell the flowers, but see the flowers. If you were to visit Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village Mediation Center in the Dordogne region of southwestern France, you’d observe and hear throughout the day, mindfulness bells ringing to remind everyone to slow down and be aware of the present moment. Everyone stops what they are doing to fully experience their experiences.
A student comes to a Zen master and asks for his most secret teaching. With one deft move the master picks up a brush, dips it in some ink and writes the word ‘Attention.’ Dissatisfied by the answer, the student presses for another, deeper teaching. The master takes up the brush again and writes, ‘Attention, Attention.’ The student is still unimpressed. He says, “If you are a master you should be able to give me more than that.” So, the master sighs and then writes, ‘Attention, Attention, Attention’.
