Attention
Beyond Mindfulness
Gay WatsonA valuable and timely account of attention, from neuroscience to surfing.
Attention is central to everything we do and think, and underlies both the mindfulness revolution and concerns about the influence of social and digital media today.
In this book Gay Watson explores attention in action through many disciplines and ways of life, from neuroscience to surfing. The book contains interviews with, among others, John Luther Adams, Stephen Batchelor, Susan Blackmore, Guy Claxton, Edmund de Waal, Rick Hanson, Jane Hirshfield, Iain McGilchrist, Wayne McGregor, Garry Fabian Miller, Alice and Peter Oswald, Ruth Ozeki and James Turrell.
A valuable and timely account, this book is essential reading for anyone who finds their attention wandering due to the clamour of modern life, and wants to know why.
A valuable and timely account of attention, from neuroscience to surfing.
Attention is central to everything we do and think, and underlies both the mindfulness revolution and concerns about the influence of social and digital media today.
In this book Gay Watson explores attention in action through many disciplines and ways of life, from neuroscience to surfing. The book contains interviews with, among others, John Luther Adams, Stephen Batchelor, Susan Blackmore, Guy Claxton, Edmund de Waal, Rick Hanson, Jane Hirshfield, Iain McGilchrist, Wayne McGregor, Garry Fabian Miller, Alice and Peter Oswald, Ruth Ozeki and James Turrell.
A valuable and timely account, this book is essential reading for anyone who finds their attention wandering due to the clamour of modern life, and wants to know why.
A valuable and timely account of attention, from neuroscience to surfing.
Attention is central to everything we do and think, and underlies both the mindfulness revolution and concerns about the influence of social and digital media today.
In this book Gay Watson explores attention in action through many disciplines and ways of life, from neuroscience to surfing. The book contains interviews with, among others, John Luther Adams, Stephen Batchelor, Susan Blackmore, Guy Claxton, Edmund de Waal, Rick Hanson, Jane Hirshfield, Iain McGilchrist, Wayne McGregor, Garry Fabian Miller, Alice and Peter Oswald, Ruth Ozeki and James Turrell.
A valuable and timely account, this book is essential reading for anyone who finds their attention wandering due to the clamour of modern life, and wants to know why.
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This is a remarkable and searching account of the meaning of attention. Gay Watson looks deeply into the practices of artists, writers and musicians and reveals the correspondences with spiritual disciplines. This is a provocative book in replacing attention at the heart of what we should care about.
'Edmund de Waal
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In this tour de force, Gay Watson weaves together profound spiritual insights, crisply clear science, and page-turning personal observations about the front edge of consciousness: how we attend to our inner and outer worlds. Since we gradually become whatever our attention repeatedly rests upon, this book also helps readers use attention more skillfully to grow more of the good inside themselves and others.
'Rick Hanson, author of Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom
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An illuminating survey of approaches to the practice of attention that ranges from psychology to art, from mindfulness to music, from religion to philosophy. Interweaving conversations with personal reflections, Watson opens up the field of attention for each of us to explore in a way that is suited to our passions and needs.
'Stephen Batchelor, author of After Buddhism
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An illuminating and revealing book on the powers of attention. Read it immediately for a riveting way to exercise the muscle of the mind.
'Wayne McGregor CBE, Resident Choreographer of the Royal Ballet
1 Attending to Attention
Part One Creating Attention
2 The Attentive Art of Meditation and Mindfulness Practices
3 The Neuroscience of Attention
4 Emotional Attention
5 Attentive Education
Part Two Attending Creatively
6 Attentiveness to the Word
7 Visual Attention
8 Aural Attention: Listening and Hearing
9 Embodied Attention
10 Attentive and Experiential In-conclusions
References
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Gay Watson is the author of The Resonance of Emptiness: A Buddhist Inspiration for a Contemporary Psychotherapy (2002), Beyond Happiness: Deepening the Dialogue Between Buddhism, Psychotherapy and the Mind Sciences (2007) and A Philosophy of Emptiness (Reaktion, 2014). She lives in Devon and California.
