Just like fabric, or food, or a recording can be of higher or lower quality, our attention has a gradation of quality to it also. We can learn to detect this – and other people can detect it too. High-quality attention is stable (not wavering), and has both depth and lightness to it. That is, there is some substance and strength to the attention, but it is not heavy and penetrating. In addition, it feels open, receptive, and allowing – it is not colored by views or judgments. (Here is a talk I gave on Quality of Attention)
 
Mindfulness and Dharma practice have the effect of increasing the quality of our attention over time. I have also found that practice makes me more sensitive to noticing the quality of attention (in myself and others), and that I have started to value this. I find that I value having higher-quality attention.

I have heard this phrase for advertising a circus performance: "Live, without a net.”
 
In that case, we are supposed to be awed that someone would do acrobatics up high without a safety net. Truthfully, this sounds unwise to me. But in the realm of Dharma practice, it is the perfect phrase.
 
"Live, without a net” is what practice moves us toward. 

What are the “nets” that we use? I am using the word “net” to mean something that we bring into an encounter as an extra, often unseen, prop. It lowers the quality of attention. It hangs in the wings or beneath us, not as a beneficial support, but as an appendage / something awkward. It is not an accident that a net is also something that can bind us. When a net like this is not seen, it ties us up.
 
One such net is actually called that -- the Internet. The mere presence of a cell phone on the table during an interaction has been found to reduce both the cognitive ability and emotional / empathetic connection between the people.

But if the nets were only external, it would be a pretty easy problem to solve. The far bigger issue is the internal nets that bind us. One is the past.

Important and often unseen components of our experience are the past associations that come up based on what’s happening now. For instance, someone we meet might resemble an old romantic partner or college roommate, and so we bring in emotions or reactions associated with the older experience and not necessarily relevant to what’s happening now. Sometimes this happens subconsciously if the association is subtle, such as the person’s accent or way of walking.

It’s not so much that we need to delve into the psychology and figure out what relationship issues are coming up through this past association. A more Dharmic approach is simply to notice how perception works in the mind: Past experience automatically comes into present-moment experience, and we need (a) mindfulness to see that, and (b) wisdom to know whether the past association is relevant or not.
 
If we lack sufficient mindfulness or wisdom, then the past association divides our attention, drains away energy, and generally lowers the quality of the attention we have to respond truly to this person right in front of us.
 
Our views (or ways of seeing things, or orientations toward things), have quite an influence too. If I carry the view that meditators are generally boring to talk with, then I am much more likely to be bored at a meditation center than if I didn’t carry that view. I would walk in with that filter, and it would influence my experience.
 
And that actually lowers the quality of my attention because I am only attending to part of the picture. Remember that high-quality attention is fresh and receptive, open to what is actually here. Fixed views limit and confine what I can see.

So stepping back, we have now talked about internal conditions that may prevent us from having high-quality attention: Memories or past associations, and also views. When are they an actual distraction? In general, we get distracted by internal events if we don’t have enough attentional strength. We have a reaction or a response because of our past or because of views, and if we can’t hold it, it can take over. 

Quality of attention is part of the path – it shifts and changes over time. And each moment of awareness is an advance; you never go backward. The quality gets higher and higher, on average. More and more, we are "live, without a net." And as we get used to practicing this way, it can actually feel as if there is “no net,” no ground. Or sometimes it feels more like having no reference points. This too is practice.

We’ve been looking at body, speech, and mind as domains of practice that the Buddha articulated. Of course, the mind is central – we are engaged in “mind training.” The body is only going in one direction – toward decay and death. But the mind/heart can continue to develop to the very end of life.
 
The first two stanzas of the Dhammapada say a lot (Fronsdal translation):
 
All experience is preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind.
Speak or act with a corrupted mind, and suffering follows, as the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox.
 
All experience is preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind.
Speak or act with a pure mind, and happiness follows, like a never-departing shadow.
 
A natural question is thus: How to work with the mind? The rest of this post is a summary of realms we may work with in the territory of “mind.” It’s a big topic, and it differs by Buddhist tradition. But even this much is the work of a lifetime.
 
As we’ve noted in the case of the body and speech, there are two broad realms of training: through intentional practices, and through observation. These apply in the mind too. I go into more detail in this talk.
 
Creation of Beneficial Mindstates

• Examining our intention and motivation to practice: This includes remembering the dangers of death, impermanence, illness, and chasing after delusions. It also includes remembering the preciousness of human birth and our beautiful aspirations to realize deep peace, compassion, love, or liberation.
• The Brahma-Viharas. Deliberate practices of the heart: goodwill, compassion, joy, and equanimity.
• Concentration: Learning to gather the mind into a nondistracted state. These states are very pleasant and free up an enormous amount of energy. Discovering this potential in the mind is valuable and it must be well-directed toward the aim of liberation.
• Investigation/Inquiry: Generating the interest to examine the mind. It can be done using specific questions, or in a more wordless way. It provides a segueway into the practice of observing the mind.

 
Observation of the Mind

• The Satipatthana Sutta (MN 10) offers realms and modes of observation in the mind: Feeling tone; the presence and absence of various beneficial and unbeneficial qualities; the arising and passing away of various mindstates.
• We are especially directed toward observing the conditionality of experience.
• This leads to seeing particular qualities of experience more precisely: Impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and emptiness (of inherent existence)

• In my experience, this tends toward a broad awareness in which everything can arise and pass

 
At some point, we start to get a feel for what mental activity itself feels like. Then the mind can move toward relaxing this. Even these “observations” still employ the mental activity of Investigation (which is good – it’s a factor of Awakening – but at some point starts to feel too “active”). And this leads to letting go. In the end, the mind is let go; development is necessary, but is not the final goal.
 
Development of the Mind
 
We tend to go through cycles of intentional development and observation. This can occur in a single sit, when we spend some time getting concentrated or gladdening the mind, and then change to a more open awareness. It also occurs over the months and years of practice. You may feel drawn to developmental practice for a while: concentration, metta, compassion practice, challenging your internal assumptions, strengthening intention, etc. And then at some point, this may seem too active and even agitating, and you begin to settle back and just watch the flow. This may lead to insight – the result of which might very well be the understanding that more needs to be developed.
 
It’s good to trust what you are drawn to in practice. The path of development and the path of letting go are two sides of the same coin. They both lead toward the deep insights of the path that free the heart from the vicissitudes of the outer and inner worlds. Fully freeing the heart will probably take both a lot of development and a lot of observation and letting go.
 
All of this is not to diminish the role of the body and speech in practice. Those who try to ignore these two realms (or simply "transcend" them) are in for a rough ride: We must ultimately have an integrated development of all aspects of our being. Getting into alignment is much of the path. May your practice be multidimensional.