Parabola's Summer 1990 issue:
Attention Every tradition has a name for it--mindfulness, remembering,
dhyana, kavanah, dhikr--and it is at the center of them all, for nothing can take place without it, except by accident. But no one has ever been able to define attention in its totality. We say it is this, it is that, and many of the things we say are true, but none of them is complete. Is it because it is so closely linked with
being, which is equally indefinable? It has been said that "I am my attention." At any moment, its measure is the measure of what a person is, and it has as many characters, and degrees, and qualities, and levels as that greatest of mysteries, the human being. --from the editorial Focus
Cover: Egyptian statue of Chephren (Khafre), 26th century B.C.E. Cairo Museum, Egypt Photograph copyright G. Dagli Orti
In this issue:
- "The Practice of Attention" by Philip Novak
- Traditional ways for developing greater awareness
- "Walking" by Linda Hogan
- Contemplating the nature of elemental change
- "The Door to Infinity" by Flora Courtois
- A radical intimacy at the heart of Zen
- "The Revolving Wall" by Gai Eaton
- Correct orientation in Islam
- "Before the Cock Crow" from St. Matthew
- The sleeping disciples
- "Silence of the Heart" by Richard Temple
- The call for awakening in the Philokalia
- "The Attending Physician" by Richard S. Sandor
- A different ethos of medical care
- "Doors in the Wall" by Aldous Huxley
- A classic rebuttal of the trap of rigid systematic reasoning
- "Crystalline Moments" by Nadia Boulanger
- Attentiveness in music and life
- "Acceptance and Attention" by Hubert Benoit
- Acknowledging the limitations of the ordinary self
- ARCS: "Power in the Heart"
- "Dhyana: The Long, Pure Look" by Padma Hejmadi
- The Hindu concept of spontaneous prayer
- "The Force of Attention" by William Segal
- Sensation as a gateway to exchange with the divine
- "Listening to the Silence" by J. Krishnamurti
- What it really means to "pay attention"
- "Sunflower" by P. L. Travers
- A golden metaphor of presence and intention
Epicycles - Traditional stories from around the world
- "The Sleeping Master" / Zen
- "The Golden Phoenix" / Islam
- "The Moment of Truth" / Mexico - From Tom Lea's novel, The Brave Bulls
