Last week, I suggested that you pay attention to complaining – yours and that of other people around you. I hope that you tried this practice and increased your awareness of just how pervasive and pernicious complaining can be.

For this week, I want to propose a practice that isn’t really a “practice”: play with attention.

My first introduction to meditation came from Carl Jung, when I was just 15 years old. Maybe I was a strange kid, but I was curious about it and decided to learn more about this Eastern practice. From the little gem of a book called “The Secret of the Golden Flower”, I learned the basics of meditation practice, and started practicing on my own.

My interest in meditation and mindfulness grew from there, leading me to read hundreds of books, try countless techniques, attend retreats, and study a number of different teachers. But the one thing that underlay my pursuit was a certain playfulness. it was never something that I took overly seriously, even when I was pratcicing for 45 minutes a day, 7 days a week, for several years.

Looking back, I am grateful that I approached meditation, mindfulness and the mastery of attention with a curious, playful mind. I think I learned a lot more as a result of it.

So the “practice” I’m going to suggest this week, is to try to bring a childlike inquisitiveness to your own attention. Inquire into just what the hell attention even is, but not through books and study. Rather, just play with it. Just how focused CAN your attention be? How open can it be? What’s hard? What’s easy? What happens when you focus on something REALLY intently? Is it possible to focus on nothing at all?

One of the beauties of mindfulness practice is that nothing is taken at face value. You have to try it for yourself and find out for yourself what happens when you experiment with different ways of paying attention.

If you’re unsure how to start, you could search the web for different exercises to train the attention, and playfully experiment with what comes up. There will be HUNDREDS of exercises for you to play with.

A final word: have fun! If any of the exercises bother you or don’t seem to be working for you, for heaven’s sake, switch to another one!