What is attentiveness? Concentration…alertness…paying attention? Well, attentiveness is being aware of what’s going on in your surroundings. It may be as complicated as anyone’s problems, but it may be as simple as nobody will even notice it. It is sensing if today is the proper time to get your ideas across to somebody.

As I’ve read somewhere before, there is an old parable about an educated English gentleman visiting a well-known Buddhist master to check whether he could learn something from the spiritual teacher. The holy man poured a cup of tea for the English gentleman and didn’t stop pouring until there was tea all over the floor. Finally, the English gentleman could not resist asking: “Why are you overfilling the cup with tea?” The Buddhist holy man replied with: “This cup is just like your head. Your head is so full and occupied with thoughts that nothing will go into it. So you must empty yourself first so that you may learn something new from me.”

This is what we call attentiveness, and it works a lot. We need to empty ourselves of ideas and our thoughts and different ways of seeing things. We may be able to exercise our power of vision to create changes positively for others and even for ourselves. We may be able to make use of all our senses to absorb in all we can about other people and other things. We may be able to adjust more accurately our behavior in needed situations. We may be able to sense actively the needs of other people around us in different situations as well.

Attentiveness also means we are open to more information entering our eyes and ears, and our sense of touch. That is how our body will react—every muscle and every organ of our body. This ability of being attentive will give us access to other person’s feelings, and at times those feelings are reflected in our own body, such feelings like sadness, fear, and discomfort. When we pay attention to those kinds of feelings within ourselves and within others, we will be able to identify potential problems that may arise in the future.

Developing an insight will provide us the basis for visualizing something that will work better for us.

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