This reflection grows out of my continued work with Cynthia Bourgeault’s Practicing Living Presence: Discovering the Mind of Christ Within. Bourgeault’s teaching in that course is itself a sustained engagement with Kabir Helminski’s Living Presence, which explores the inner mechanics of attention within the Sufi contemplative tradition. One of the insights that gradually surfaces in that stream of teaching is disarmingly simple: attention is not just a mental function. It is an energetic act. Where we place it quietly shapes the quality of our awareness and, over time, the formation of the soul itself.
Noticing Where the Mind Actually Goes
Most people imagine attention as something passive. Life happens, thoughts appear, emotions flare up, and the mind simply reacts. Attention follows whatever happens to be loudest in the moment.
But if you begin watching the movement of attention carefully, the situation looks different.
Attention is not merely following experience. It is feeding it.
Where attention settles, something begins to grow. The thought becomes more vivid. The emotion gains strength. The story we are telling ourselves acquires weight and gravity. A passing irritation can turn into a long internal argument. A small worry can become a loop the mind returns to again and again.
It is tempting to assume the thought itself is the cause of the emotional state. But often the real cause is simpler: attention kept returning to it.
What attention repeatedly touches begins to take root.
The Economy of Distraction
In earlier centuries spiritual teachers warned about “the wandering mind.” Today wandering attention has become an entire economic model.
Phones vibrate. Notifications appear. Headlines compete with videos, comments compete with headlines, and algorithms quietly refine their ability to keep the mind moving from one stimulus to the next. None of these moments feel dramatic on their own, yet the cumulative effect is surprisingly powerful.
Attention becomes scattered.
By the end of the day the mind may feel overstimulated while the inner life feels oddly thin. Many people experience this as fatigue without quite understanding the cause.
It is not always that we have done too much.
Often it is that our attention has been pulled in too many directions.
Energy follows attention. When attention fragments, the energy of awareness fragments with it.
A Small Experiment
The effect becomes obvious once you try a simple experiment.
Spend twenty minutes scrolling through arguments online. Watch the mind react to opinions, headlines, sarcasm, outrage. Notice what happens inside the body while this is happening.
Then stop.
Put the device down and sit quietly for a few minutes. Let attention rest on the movement of the breath. Nothing complicated. Just the simple rhythm of breathing in and breathing out.
Most people notice the shift almost immediately.
The nervous system begins to soften. Thoughts slow down. A quiet sense of steadiness returns that was not present a few minutes earlier.
Nothing in the external world changed.
Only the direction of attention.
That small shift reveals something important about the mechanics of consciousness. Attention is not neutral. It directs the flow of energy within the psyche.
Where attention rests, vitality gathers.
The Seeds That Receive Water
A helpful way to understand attention is to think of the inner life as a garden.
Within every human being there are many seeds: fear, curiosity, anger, patience, compassion, resentment, generosity. All of them exist in potential. But not all of them grow equally.
The seeds that receive water and sunlight are the ones that flourish.
Attention functions very much like water in this metaphor. Whatever repeatedly receives our attention becomes stronger within the landscape of the personality. If attention continually circles around grievance, grievance becomes familiar territory. If attention repeatedly feeds anxiety, the nervous system begins expecting anxiety as its default condition.
But attention can nourish other qualities as well.
It can strengthen patience. It can deepen perception. It can quietly cultivate compassion by allowing the heart to remain present long enough to actually feel another person’s reality.
The garden grows according to what receives water.
The Practice of Recollection
For centuries contemplative traditions have understood this dynamic. In Christian mystical teaching the process of gathering scattered attention is often called recollection. The word itself carries a gentle wisdom: to recollect is simply to collect again what has been dispersed.
Recollection does not require withdrawing from the world. It does not demand heroic spiritual effort. It is simply the repeated act of bringing attention back to the immediacy of the present moment.
At first the effect appears small.
The breath becomes more noticeable. The body releases a little tension. Thoughts continue to move through the mind, but they lose some of their urgency. Instead of pulling awareness in every direction, they begin appearing more like passing weather.
The mind is still active.
But it no longer occupies the entire sky.
The Gathering of Energy
Something interesting begins happening when attention stabilizes even slightly.
Energy gathers.
Awareness begins feeling more coherent. Emotional reactions soften because they are no longer instantly fueled by attention. The mind becomes capable of observing its own activity without being completely swept away by it.
This does not require mystical fireworks. It is a subtle shift in the way awareness functions.
Instead of constantly scattering outward, attention begins resting more deeply in the present moment. When that happens, another quality of consciousness becomes noticeable beneath the surface movement of thoughts.
Many contemplative traditions describe this as presence.
It is quiet. It is steady. And it was there the entire time, waiting for attention to stop running in every direction.
Becoming What We Attend To
Over long periods of time attention shapes character in ways that are rarely obvious at first. Human beings gradually become what they habitually attend to.
If attention continually feeds distraction, agitation becomes the atmosphere of the mind. If attention remains trapped in resentment or worry, those emotional states slowly organize the psyche around themselves.
But when attention repeatedly returns to presence, something different begins unfolding.
The inner life gains stability. Insight appears more easily. Emotional storms pass more quickly because they are no longer receiving constant reinforcement.
Little by little the center of gravity within awareness shifts.
And it all begins with something very small: noticing where attention has gone.
The Shape of the Soul
The practice itself is almost embarrassingly simple.
Notice where attention is resting.
When it has wandered into agitation or endless mental commentary, gently return it to the living moment in front of you. Not with force, not with frustration, but with the quiet patience of someone tending a garden.
Each return gathers a little energy.
Each moment of recollection strengthens the capacity for presence.
Over time the inner life becomes less scattered and more whole.
And slowly, almost invisibly, the soul begins taking the shape of what it continually beholds.
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Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self by Kabir Helminski
🙏♥️ This is a priceless teaching. I have spent a lot of time in counseling learning some of these concepts.
I have CPTSD (although I have far fewer triggered episodes) plus some OCD 🤣to put it mildly. My counselor helped me understand that I was often a victim, not so much from the horrible past experiences but from my own mind. She helped me understand I have lots of choices. I can actually choose what I think about and dwell on.
It may sound like a no brainer to some but it never occurred to me that I didn’t HAVE to obsess on, not just my past, but ANYTHING. 😌
Easy to say but hard to do at least at first. Baby steps slowly helped me began to build a new life.
You often mention, VMB, paying attention to breathing. I know it sounds like a small thing but that is one of my best tools. Anytime I become aware I am holding my breath (which can send me into angst, physical stress, etc) I have learned to stop and take a step back and assess why.
I can decide/choose to make a different choice about what I am doing, how I’m doing it, why I’m doing it. At first it was admittedly hard but I slowly addressed one thing at a time.
A good for instance for me is how I handle the news. I avoid watching any news on TV. Because I have no control of what will come next, pictures, context, opinions and thoughts that infiltrate my mind and can trigger my PTSD in an instant. So I have chosen other ways to be attune to what is happening in the world and in my community. My choice has been to find sources I can read instead, that endeavor to give the “what, where, when, why and how” approach, avoiding sensationalizing and pushing personal opinions. Admittedly not easy to find these days 😌. But as I read I can stop at anytime, decide if I need to know or read anymore. As well as any avoiding visuals as needed.
I can’t control what is happening out there but I can control how much I let in and how it affects me. Just this one thing has improved my quality of life immensely.
We are all so different and have so many varied circumstances and experiences and needs. What upsets me may not bother another in the least. My knee jerk reactions will definitely be different than others. But it really is possible to choose what we focus on. I’ve come a long way and I know the journey of living in Presence isn’t about a destination but about experiencing new things, new joy, new ways to let go of anger, resentment, fear and angst and embrace the beauty of just being now and here. I give myself permission to dwell on the wonderful things all around me.
Living near a park I can listen to children laughing, playing, and talking RATHER than being inside my head reliving difficult things, worrying about any and everything and for me especially, considering “shoulds” that culturally and religiously come from every direction.
Anyway, just affirming your teaching and suggestions with all my heart. I’m hoping others will share their thoughts and experiences of what living in Presence means, looks like and feels for them. And what kinds of refocusing helps them. 🙏😌
I’m reminded of the tale of two wolves living inside each person. They fight, one is anger- the other is peace. Which wins? The one you feed, of course.