Distraction, No Traction

Copyright © 2013 by Robert Colacurcio.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4931-4998-8

                eBook            978-1-4931-4999-5

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Rev. date: 12/16/2013

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CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Chapter One   Presence of Mind vs. the Detour of Distraction

Chapter Two   Purposefulness or the Erosion of Meaning

Chapter Three   Looking for One’s Ultimate Purpose

Chapter Four   The Search for Ultimate Spiritual Purpose

Chapter Five   Distraction as a Strategy

Chapter Six   Mindfulness as a Competing Strategy

Chapter Seven   Spiritual Technology: Mindfulness 101

Chapter Eight   Spiritual Technology: Mindfulness 202

Chapter Nine   Fear as Friend or Foe of Mindfulness

Chapter Ten   Pure Intention and Mindfulness

Chapter Eleven   The Scope of Pure Intention

Chapter Twelve   Mindfulness: Mine, Yours, Ours

Chapter Thirteen   Mindfulness as Gratitude

Chapter Fourteen   Presence as Coalescence

Final Dedication

This book is dedicated to my root teacher, the late Pedma Norbu Rinpoche, who gave me his living example of the undistracted mindfulness of the bodhisattva.

Preface

Distraction is a habit of mind that starts early and finishes late. The double entendre in that sentence is intended. Distraction as an habitual character trait is learned early; or perhaps it might be truer to say that it results from an ineffective teaching discipline that starts early in life. If this habit of mind goes unnoticed and unchecked, it breeds. Its offspring are virtually limitless. Distraction is unfortunately one of those habit patterns that we typically don’t outgrow. It continues to spawn its variations late in life. As I write, the scientific community is divided about whether disciplined mental habits of mindfulness and concentration practiced early on can offset or mitigate the degenerative process that shows up later on as dementia and Alzheimer’s. We can only hope that medical science will one day offer a neurological corrective to the physiological degeneration which shows itself in long and short term memory loss, not just in distraction.

The kind of distraction that this book addresses, however, is not considered pathological. If it were, the pandemic would be so universal that no one would escape a negative clinical diagnosis. The negative effects of distraction are nevertheless serious and widespread, but we tend to accept their presence as a part of the human condition that we just have to live with. The negative toll in our consumer society from distraction, which shows up in a loss of GDP, has not been calculated. Perhaps we will never be able to measure in dollars the cost of distraction to society as a whole. The sociological and economic implications of distraction are not my primary concern in this book.

The reader I have in mind is the person who is looking for greater depth perception to their outlook on life. Perhaps they have tried a variety of self help nostrums which proved unsatisfactory. Perhaps the get-happy incentives that advertising promotes to stimulate our consumer society have already started to lose their appeal. Maybe even the consolations of institutional religion just don’t satisfy they way they once did. This person is looking for more depth and meaning in their life. They have a strong sense that the more of our hyper active society is actually less, and this person seeks something more that is not less in disguise.

This book offers the individual a way to understand the slippage into less that is being disguised as something more. I try to decode many of the deceptive cons of distraction. I also offer practical suggestions to regain traction towards deeper meaning in life. These ideas come from a lifetime of practicing a variety of mental and spiritual disciplines, but they are completely independent of any sectarian affiliation. The reader can come from any religious tradition or none, and make sense and use of the methods that counter the habits of distraction. The results can be measured by any individual who makes the effort to practice them. Therefore, a test is in the reader’s hands to determine whether the effort was worth the effort.

Without the traction of mindfulness as antidote to distraction, there will inevitably be a slip sliding away (in the words of Paul Simon) from one’s intended destination. My hope is that the reader will find in this book some useful ideas that have practical application to address the slippage of distraction into the variety of mental detours, that upon reflection, we would all choose to avoid if we could.

Anyone wishing to pursue the ideas in this book (or in any of my others) is welcome to contact me with their questions and comments at [email protected]

Introduction

This book is about the various pitfalls and detours the mind can take because of distraction. Like its antidote mindfulness, distraction comes in many varieties. Some plague us daily and we usually discount them as minor annoyances, if we even notice them at all. Some detour and take an entire life off course. All varieties of distraction are characterized by slippage of some kind caused by a lack of mental traction. Mindfulness as the antidote to distraction is characterized by mental traction. Where there is mental slippage and loss of traction we wander off track and sometimes lose our way. Where mindfulness prevails, we stay on track, even if the road is circuitous and slippery.

There is a story told in the yogic tradition of India about a meditation master who lived high up in the Himalayas with a small cluster of disciples camped around. With each passing year, his reputation increased. Although he never came down from his mountain retreat, people talked as though they knew him well. Always they spoke of him with reverence and awe. A young pandit (a Hindu scholar) fresh out of university heard these stories and was skeptical. In fact, he believed this mountain man to be a fraud, a charlatan who duped his disciples into devoting their lives to him. The young scholar made it his mission to seek out the master’s camp and pose as a disciple. He would thereby collect hard evidence that well meaning but naïve people were being duped. He started to refer to this venture as his expose of the con master on the mountain.

So, one day he trekked off and, after an arduous climb, located the con master’s camp. He played his part well: bowing and begging to be allowed to become a disciple. The master agreed. For two weeks the pandit participated in the group’s daily meditation sessions and other prayer rituals called pujas. He rose at dawn, and was punctually seated in what passed for a temple at the first meditation practice. The daily routine for the disciples consisted of several lengthy meditation sessions and at least one puja that would be like one of our formal liturgical services. The head lama, the so called con master on the mountain, rarely attended these practices. Occasionally he would appear to give a brief teaching before the start, and sometimes he attended a puja. He always came to the one midday meal, however. He puttered a lot in his garden, and often took his afternoon nap in a lounge chair in the sun. The skeptical pandit carefully took note of all these things, and became gleeful with the hard evidence of the lama’s fraudulent behavior. He believed the lama’s conduct was beyond lax; it was a disgraceful example to the monastic efforts of the disciples.

So, this pandit confronted the lama one morning. Absenting himself from meditation practice, he challenged the master as he was hoeing in his garden. I came here suspecting you were not the mediation master everyone down below believes you to be. In fact, I suspected you were a fraud, and after just a short stay, I have the evidence. If you do get up with the sun like the rest of us, we certainly don’t see you at first practice. In fact, you hardly come to temple at all. There is no evidence that you do the formal yogic meditations that anyone has a right to expect of someone claiming to me a master. Your day, on the contrary, is filled with the kind of activities that an ordinary householder might do, except that you don’t have to go to a job to earn a living. Somehow all these poor dupes are willing to support you. What do you have to say for yourself, old man? The old lama leaned on his hoe and a flicker of sadness crossed his face before he looked into the eyes of the pandit with kindness and gentle compassion. He simply said, But when am I ever distracted?

This is not a book about meditation practice in the formal sense. Rather, it is an effort to give the contemporary Western householder some steps leading up to more mindfulness as the antidote to distraction. I suggest five steps, each of which can bring the reader more familiarity with the workings of their own mind. The Tibetan word that is usually translated as meditation, literally means familiarity or to become familiar with. Even if one practices meditation formally, the point is not to become a good meditator. Rather, familiarity with the habits of one’s own mind is meant to lead to liberation from those negative habits, such as distraction, whose net result is always suffering in some form or other.

The five steps towards deeper mindfulness that I develop are these:

1) presence of mind 2) clear purposefulness 3) pure intention 4) offering and 5) gratitude. For