Awareness and Concentration
An untrained awareness behaves like an untrained dog on a leash, pulled to every beep, noise and voice, so that you spend the whole day tugging it back.
Dandapani compares awareness to the dogs he watched being walked in New York City, where it often looked as though the dogs were walking their owners. He shows what an untrained awareness does all day when the phone beeps and voices and noises pull at it.
What this talk covers
- Walking dogs in New York City, it appeared to him that the dogs were walking their owners rather than the other way around.
- Walking an untrained dog means constantly tugging it back and telling it not to bury its head in something.
- An untrained awareness is no different from an untrained dog.
- Every time the phone beeps, awareness goes to it; a noise pulls it one way and a voice pulls it another, and this happens all day long.
Every time the phone beeps, awareness goes to it.Dandapani
Questions
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Because awareness is untrained, and an untrained awareness is pulled by whatever calls it. The phone beeps and awareness goes to it, a noise or a voice takes it elsewhere, all day long.
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It looks like walking an untrained dog. You spend the time pulling it back from whatever it has wandered into, rather than keeping it where you want it.
Transcript
155 words · 0:54
Our minds are like a dog sometimes. And I used to live in New York City for many years, and often I would see people walking their dogs in the evenings and in the mornings.
But even though the people were thinking to themselves and sure that they were walking their dogs, it appeared to me like their dogs were walking them. Our mind is no different.
Our awareness sometimes is like a dog as well. If we have an untrained dog, then that's what we do when we walk the dog. We're constantly tugging the dog back, telling the dog to not bury its head in something we don't want it to be buried in. An untrained awareness is no different. Every time the
phone beeps, awareness goes to it. Here's the noise over there, awareness looks over there. Here's a voice over here, awareness looks over here. And this happens all day long.