So much competes for one's attention today that we barely notice how the more we struggle to win what this world says we must have to be happy, the more we not only lose sight of ourselves, but of a simpler happiness that once was ours when we were less well-versed in our desires.

Our experience of each moment -- for its pleasure or pain, peace or trouble -- is a direct reflection of what we are in relationship with in the present.

Students commented on the attention exercise we learned yesterday and did during lunch today.

Topics covered: slacker, perfection, imperfection, spiritual practice, doing the work, spiritual exercises, 7 step attention exercise...

Classroom Talk: 3/19/2003 - Never agree that you are powerless in the face of dark and unwanted moments, because instead of mindlessly aching you can always reclaim your attention and remember this truth: The Light of God is greater than any shadows come over you so, instead of hating the darkness, look for this Light and watch how your life grows brighter.

Topics covered: As goes my attention, so comes my experience. As comes my experience, so comes my sense of self. If my sense of self has fallen into what I don't want, then I AM what I don't want; Negative reactions kill all other possibilities. Negative reactions collapse one's experience into a very limited field; "Divinity is our birthright. God nods to God from behind each of us. But let us remember, divinity is behind our failures and follies also"...

Topics covered: We meet life through our understanding of it. If we want to change our experience of life, then we will first need to change our understanding of it; We psychologically chain people to our demands whenever they don't do what we want them to do; Your attention is a form of request. Everything that you attend to, even if you are not aware of it, is a form of prayer...

Classroom Talk: 9/6/2002 - Be encouraged by this truth and then do the inner work to realize the freedom it holds for you: Life itself never stands in our way. It never intends to hold us down. If something is seen by us as restricting our way, then, instead of backing away in resentment from what amounts to a vision of life provided for us by our own thickened thoughts about what we cannot be, let us turn our attention to the parts of us...

Topics covered: right ceaseless effort, paying attention, being in the present moment, no sacrifice no self-awakening...

Guy Finley explains that when we lend our attention to considering any worry, blame, regret, or resentment, we have unknowingly agreed to be commanded by that negative state.

Topics covered: Your attention is indiscriminately given away to anything and everything that gives you a sense of self; Spiritual work is very sobering because you know what would happen to you without it; The sleeping, unconscious mind is exactly like a pit of snakes; Everything is a gift if you are there to receive it; You have two natures -- one that knows itself through an opposite, and o...

In a moment of crisis, would you say that you're easy-going? Are you wide-open and joyous to be with? Or, in a crisis, would you say you're about as tense as a human being could possibly be? Isn't that true? The more tense you are through resistance, the more negative you become. The more negative you become, the more resistance resists itself. And the more you resist yourself, the more tense you become. So you run left, you run right...