THE PATH OF
SECOND ATTENTION

The mastery of our attention,
is the path that makes us free.

From all our natural faculties, it is the use of attention the one that has the most influence on our existence.. We believe that the world exists as it appears to our perception when it is our attention that assembles it in the way we see it.. From there it follows that by learning to manage our attention we can in fact create a new world in which we can inhabit. This may seem strange, but each human being lives in the particular reality that they have built throughout their life., usually unconsciously.

Dominion over our attention is the center of our ability to be and create the realities we yearn for.. But to achieve this we find ourselves with three fundamental problems 1. Ignorance about the different modalities of attention and about how to access them 2. Our biological and social vulnerability to the external manipulation of our attention 3. The confusion between substance-induced altered states and true heightened awareness.

As for the first problem, we can speak of three attentions The first attention is the one that allows us to perceive the everyday world and the shared social reality. It's the realm of reason. The second attention is the one that allows us to perceive non-ordinary reality and opens the door to silent knowledge.. The Third Attention is the integration of the first two. It represents the balance between the concrete and the abstract. All people know the first attention and spend their entire lives almost exclusively in it. Fewer people know the second attention and very few know the third. Access to second attention is opened through specialized and deliberate management of the first attention that is available to everyone. This requires some discipline and practice. The third attention becomes available to us as an effect of the accumulation of increased consciousness that is gathered through the second attention.

All this may seem complicated, but in practice it is a natural sequence and to some extent unavoidable when we start attention management practices, such as the Walk of Attention, play a drum in a rhythmic and monotonous way for a long time or the contemplation and interaction with the powers of nature, among many others.

As far as the second problem is concerned, we are faced with the essential problem of freedom and our unconscious desire to be dominated., that is as great as our need to be free. That is why many humans do not finish growing up and spend their lives looking for an apparently strong figure to take them by the hand and help them alleviate their fear of the unknown. With these mechanisms, throughout history, some humans have found a way to seize the attention of others to accumulate power and wealth.. social narratives, political or religious have served this purpose and people get trapped in them, few human beings get to know freedom. The current era with technological devices always within reach is a new modality for manipulating our attention from which is very difficult to escape.. The attention exploitation economy dominates current business models, both in capitalist society and in authoritarian regimes around the world.

In addition to the social tensions and limitations of capitalism and democracy, droughts caused by climate change, inequality and the consequent migratory waves, create the perfect breeding ground for the emergence of populist leaderships that exacerbate fear and resentment and offer impossible solutions. The defense of the deliberate management of our own attention becomes essential to overcome the wave of obscurantism that characterizes this period.

Knowledge and cultivation of the second attention is the most effective method to escape from such manipulation and remain free.. While in the first attention the manipulation of negative emotions such as fear, resentment, self-importance or self-pity are common, in the second attention heightened awareness and silent knowledge manifest, therefore, sober and regular access to that higher level of consciousness makes us practically invulnerable to our attention being invaded by external entities motivated by a compulsive need to dominate others..

Finally, The third problem we face as a society is the confusion between substance-generated altered states and heightened consciousness.. Said in a very simple way, the difference between heightened awareness and altered perception through the use of psychotropic drugs whether natural or created in laboratories, is that awareness generates improvement in the different areas of our lives and in our relationships with others. substance use, which often generates some kind of physical or emotional dependency, weakens our abilities and the energetic scaffolding that supports our working life, socializing, and family. The greatest paradox is that our irrepressible attraction to altered states, are the consequence of a longing to meet the higher modalities of our consciousness, nevertheless, by stunting our natural abilities to enter those states naturally, Substances tend to pull us away from the heightened awareness we crave.. That is why in my work I have consistently insisted that the best path to heightened awareness is the deliberate management of the first attention and the consistent practice of controlled and healthy access to the second attention..

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Passing to the second attention is a natural faculty of human consciousness. Does not require substances that damage our cognitive abilities, generate dependency or disconnect us from our community. It requires concentration and training our first attention. The important thing is to enter it not to idly hallucinate or simply experience something exciting, but to find the conscience that helps us to live better in the different areas of our life. This is why preparation is essential.. An exercise such as making and executing a “attention hunter” like the one shown in the photo. requires prior conversations from the heart that focus attention in the right direction. People share what matters most to them, what they need, what hurts them or what they yearn for, around around a sacred fire. Are those conversations about life, carried out in the ceremonial context that is the threshold between the first and second attention, what prepares the ground for the experience. In this way the conscience is not distracted or lost in the fascination for the exotic or the colorful of the experience., but finds the meaning that the soul needs to move to the next stage of its development.