The real problem with

DistractionIt keeps you from enlightenment

shambhala sunB u d d h i s m c u lt u r e m e d i tat i o n l i f e m ay 2 0 1 4

G e o r G e S a u n d e r S o n K I n d n e S S • T h e W a y o f f r e e r u n n I n G • G o I n G f u l l S u p e r m a n

Judy lIef, ThIch nhaT hanh, Sharon SalzberG and John TarranT offer buddhism’s deeper take on a modern obsession

the dharma of

distractionIt goes a lot deeper than how many times

a day you check your phone. According to

Buddhist teacher Judy Lief , distraction

is the very foundation of ego, the way we

protect ourselves against both the pain of life

and the open space of awakened mind. You

could even say that letting go of all distraction

is the path to enlightenment.

43SHAMBHALA SUN MAy 2014

distractions are everywhere, all the time. Little screens, middling

screens, gigantic screens. Instead of Plato’s cave, we each create our own little cave and live in a

world of flickering images devoid of real substance. We literally screen off our actual world, with all

its ruggedness and rawness, and fit whatever is happening into a virtual world of sound, pictures,

and videos we carry in our pockets.

We are so easily distracted, we complain to ourselves. But what is really behind all this distractedness? It is easy to

think the relentless external stimuli are the problem, but what we are surrounded by are just phenomena, nothing more.

The objects of our world are just there, innocently, just being what they are. Noises are just noises, sights are just sights,

objects are just objects, smartphones are just smartphones, computers are just computers, thoughts are just thoughts.

That is why the Buddhist teachings talk more in terms of

wandering mind than distractions. When we think in terms of

distractions, we look outward and blame external conditions for

our jumpiness. When we think in terms of wandering mind, we

look inward for the source of our problem. We take responsibility.

Monkey Mind

The fact is that distractions won’t ever disappear. You may run

away to a little cave and stay there all alone, but distractions

will follow you wherever you go. You can’t get rid of distrac-

tions, but through meditation practice, you can change how

you react to them. It is like the story of Odysseus and the

Sirens, who enticed seamen off their course and onto the reef

to their deaths. To survive, Odysseus had himself tied to the

mast and told his crew to seal their ears.

Like the sirens, distractions pull us off course. The word “dis-

traction” means to be pulled away. When you are distracted, it

feels as if something outside of you has captured your attention.

Distraction is also referred to as desultoriness, from the Latin root

meaning “skipping around.” So another aspect of distraction is to

be scatterbrained, mentally jumpy. Buddhism calls this “monkey

mind.” In response, like Odysseus, we can bind ourselves to the

mast of discipline by means of mindfulness meditation.

Mindfulness meditation, also known as calm abiding,

helps us develop a more calm and stable mind. It gives us

greater focus and concentration and is an effective way of

overcoming ordinary distractedness. However, in terms of

the spiritual path, this pragmatic application of meditation

practice is only a start.

It is important to realize that in the buddhadharma, the

point of working with your distractedness or wandering

mind is not just to be more focused on whatever you are

doing. Although that is extremely useful, it is only the first

step. Getting a better handle on your mind so you are not

tossed about by distractedness is just a palliative measure.

Basically, we tend to like spiritual practices that are not

too threatening, practices that confirm what we are doing

and help us do it better. Instead of looking into our fun-

damental being, we prefer to relate to meditation as a self-

improvement exercise, like going to the gym and working

out. We can then bask in the satisfaction of becoming more

mentally and physically fit. This is great, but it does not

come close to addressing the depths of what distraction is

really about.

When distractions come up we can deal with them, but

we need to look deeper. What really fuels our distractedness?

What is behind this ongoing restlessness? Embarking on the

dharmic path requires that we develop the courage to look

beyond our distractedness to what lies behind it. It requires

us to question what distraction is really about, what we are

distracting ourselves from and why. On this path we need to

pare away, layer by layer, every level of distraction until we

reach a kind of ground zero.

Entertainment Mind

According to Buddhist psychology, distraction is classified,

along with such things as laziness and inattentiveness, as one

of the twenty destabilizing factors of the mind. In Sanskrit

this factor is called vikshepa. It arises when the natural flow of

sense perceptions is joined with and tainted by our emotions.

it’s easy to think external stimuli are the problem. But noises are just noises, sights are just sights,

smartphones are just smartphones.

Megatron Matrix by Nam June Paik

Left: A South Korean man uses a mobile phone to take a picture of The More, the Better, by the late Korean-American video artist Nam June Paik, at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Kwachon, south of Seoul.

Previous spread: Taken at the Nam June Paik Art Center, Gyeonggi-do, Seoul, South Korea. PHOTO BY ANA NANcE / REDux P

HO

TO

BY

SM

ITH

SO

NIA

N A

ME

RIc

AN

AR

T M

uS

Eu

M,

WA

SH

ING

TO

N,

D.c

. /

AR

T R

ES

Ou

Rc

E,

N.Y

.P

HO

TO

BY

RE

uT

ER

S / Y

Ou

Su

NG

-HO

SHAMBHALA SUN MAy 2014 45

In other words, distraction is fueled by the usual suspects:

grasping, rejecting, and denial. So distraction is not just

some mental tic. It is highly emotional.

Although vikshepa is often translated as “distraction” or

“mental wandering,” it refers more specifically to the wan-

dering mind being drawn to objects that cause it to lose its

ability to remain one-pointedly focused on virtue. So this

term points to a specific kind of distraction—distraction

from keeping your attention on what matters, on what is

genuine and virtuous.

The approach of learning how to pull our mind back when

it wanders is a reactive one: we are learning how to respond

to distractions. But as we get a little better at responding

to external distractions, we discover an even more gigantic

mountain of internal distractedness. We begin to notice how

it is not just a matter of reacting to something outside us—

we ourselves are continually creating distractions. We find

that we need distractions, so we continually cook them up

and keep them going. They are our companions, our pets.

chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche called our continual inner

distractedness “subconscious gossip,” a kind of ongoing

drone of thought fragments and opinions. As a corollary,

he talked about what he called “entertainment mind.” This

entertainment mind needs to be fed constantly. If there are no

immediate distractions, it will manufacture new distractions

on the spot. So we are engaged in a continuous distraction

project, keeping the distractions and entertainments flowing

without interruption. There is an air of desperation about

both of these self-created rivers of distractedness.

Our hope is that if we keep all this distractedness going,

we will not have to look at who we are, we will not have to

feel what we feel, we will not have to see what we see. But the

spiritual path is one of removing these smoke screens and

facing facts. It is an unmasking process. It is pretty scary to

realize how reliant we are on this whole scheme, and even

scarier when we realize that this continual distraction proj-

ect may collapse at any time.

Distraction is fueled by our constant struggle to secure our-

selves in relationship to others and to the environment. That

project in turn is fueled by our fear of letting go and our lack

of trust in ourselves. It is as if we are on guard all the time,

afraid to miss an opportunity to strike and continually wary

of potential threats or attacks. Based on these emotions, our

mind is pulled this way and that. To relate to this level of dis-

tractedness, we need not only to pull back the wandering mind

but also to lessen its fuel supply: the push and pull of emotions.

Wisdom Mind

Working with distractions is a long-term project. We may begin

with a romantic idea of embarking on the spiritual journey. But

as we stick with the practice, that romanticism fades away and

we are left with a gradual wearing-down process. We find we

have less and less wiggle room. It is a shock to realize that we

cannot just take our good old self and improve it, but that we

have to start over completely. It’s like a major liquidation sale.

All our distractions and entertainments—everything’s gotta go.

As our edifice of distractedness begins to crumble, we are

faced with disappointment and pain. Our dreams and illu-

sions begin to evaporate. Everywhere we turn, we get thrown

back on ourselves. There is no escape. No matter what is

happening, we have become used to being able to fabricate

alternate scenarios, so we could never be pinned down. We

did not have to fully commit to anything; there was always a

way out. But now we are stuck. We are confronted with our

own pain and disappointment.

With no one to keep us company—we can’t even keep

ourselves company—we are confronted with our utter

aloneness. There is nothing to do and nothing to hang on

to. We are alone, lonely, it is bleak. Everything we relied on

turns out to be a sham, a mental construct. We hit a wall.

But when we reach the point where we can no longer cover

up what we have been doing or force our experience to bend

to our will, something happens. We begin to relax. Although

at first the notion of utterly abandoning our smoke screen of

TV Buddha by Nam June Paik

Technology by Nam June Paik

PH

OT

O B

Y P

AT

RIc

k P

OS

T / H

OL

LA

ND

SE

HO

OG

TE

/ RE

Du

x

What lies behind these endless distractions is the boundless space of awakened mind.

PH

OT

O B

Y S

MIT

HS

ON

IAN

AM

ER

IcA

N A

RT

Mu

SE

uM

, W

AS

HIN

GT

ON

, D

.c.

/ A

RT

RE

SO

uR

cE

, N

.Y.

We don’t just react to things outside us— we ourselves are continually creating distractions. We cook them up and keep them going. They are our companions, our pets.

SHAMBHALA SUN MAy 2014 SHAMBHALA SUN MAy 2014 4746

begins. It is there that the teachings can begin to take hold,

not as ego’s accouterment nor as a surface adornment but as

a deep-rooted transformative energy reaching right down to

our bones.

So like the christian mystics, we too need to abandon our

familiar world, leave everything behind, and go to the des-

ert. In this case, the desert is our own mind. This desert mind

is what is left when our project of continual distraction has

fallen apart.

We can learn a lot by observing how we oscillate between

distraction or entertainment and boredom. Boredom has an

edge to it. We feel our ground slipping away; we struggle to

find some way to secure ourselves. There is too much space;

we need to fill it. There is nothing happening; we need to do

something. It is too quiet; something must be wrong.

Paying attention to these kinds of responses to boredom

is extremely valuable. It is a great practice. And when you

feel that you absolutely must do something about it, stay

with the boredom a bit longer! Let yourself feel bored com-

pletely. In this way you might be able to get a glimpse of

what Trungpa Rinpoche called “cool boredom,” an experi-

ence refreshingly free of grasping, pretense, and struggle. In

cool boredom, you can finally let go of the burden of trying

to be someone. You can have a break from the project of “I.”

Going further, we need to address an even more funda-

mental level of distractedness. According to the Vajrayana

teachings, what we are fundamentally distracting ourselves

from is awakening. We are habitually distracting ourselves

from the challenge of confronting our own wisdom. We dis-

tract ourselves from the intensity of the present moment,

the immediacy of the teachings, and our own genuineness.

As soon as we have even a little glimpse of this potential, we

panic and scramble to get away. We can handle an arm’s-

length relationship to the dharma, which is inspiring yet

somewhat manageable. But when that comfortable distance

collapses and we face the full intensity of the teachings, we

cop out by manufacturing distractions on the spot. For most

of us, this level of distraction is more or less continuous.

Throughout the Buddhist path, we are working with dis-

tractions at many levels of depth. In fact, distractions and

the path pretty much go hand in hand. You could even con-

sider distractions to be your best teachers.

Like good teachers, distractions humiliate us and shake us

up. They abruptly cut through our pretensions. It is shock-

ing to see how out of it we are so much of the time. At any

level, distractions can be annoying, frustrating, and arise

willy-nilly. But, like good teachers, they also spur us for-

ward. The very moment a distraction arises, there also arises

a chance to break through to what lies behind it. And what

lies behind these endless distractions is the boundless space

of awakened mind. ♦ “Cliffhanger” retreat cabin, Gampo Abbey, Nova Scotia

PH

OT

O B

Y A

AR

ON

kL

Ok

EID

Robot k 456 by Nam June Paik

PH

OT

O B

Y H

AN

S-c

HR

IST

IAN

PL

AM

BE

ck

/ LA

IF / R

ED

ux

distractions is threatening, even terrifying, if we stay with that

experience even a little, the smoke begins to clear and we can

start to see in a completely new way.

christian mystics say that you need to go through a dark night

of the soul before entering into the presence of God. It is like the

analogy of the light at the end of the tunnel. No dark night, no

union with God; no tunnel, no light. Trungpa Rinpoche also

talked about the importance of this stage of development. He

taught that when students have become completely frustrated—

when their practice has brought them to the point of giving

up hope and thinking of abandoning the whole path—that

is precisely the point where the real journey of awakening

Distraction: A Contemplation in Four Parts

In t h i s c o n t E M p l at i v E E x E r c i s E , you

are invited to embark on an imaginary retreat.

In this retreat, you have the chance to look more

deeply into the whole distraction project, and get a

glimpse of the power of simplicity and aloneness. It is a

reminder that we can view every meditation session as a

mini-retreat, no matter where we are.

Part 1: External DistractionsImagine going to a small cabin in the woods, where you

plan to spend some time alone. The cabin is simple, with

a bed, a chair, and a small kitchen area. You bring some

clothes, your bedding, food, and water.

But there is a lot that you do not bring. You bring no

clock or watch. You leave at home any books or reading

material. You bring no paper or journal or anything to

write with, no musical instruments. Staying at home are

your laptop, desktop, home phone, cell phone, iPod, iPad,

camera, recorder, radio, television, newspapers, magazines,

appointment book, calendar—every bit of electronica.

As you unpack and settle in, you are aware of all that

you left behind. This may feel refreshing, or it may make

you feel slightly uneasy.

Part 2: Internal DistractionsHere you are in your cabin, but now what? You wonder,

shouldn’t I be doing something? Maybe I should do some

meditation or contemplate something. Maybe I should

go on a walk. The cabin could use a little cleaning and

straightening, maybe I should clean it up. Might want to

do some yoga.

As you are figuring out what you want to do, you begin

to notice not only what you left behind, but how much

you have brought along with you. You realize how hard it

is simply to just be, without a plan or agenda.

Part 3: Fear of StoppingIn your little cabin, not much is happening. You try to

cook up something, but you don’t have a lot of material

to work with. Streams of thoughts, fantasies, and

daydreams help. Floods of memories provoke moods and

emotions and trigger further streams of thoughts and

reactions. You laugh, you cry. You begin to wonder what

will happen if you can’t keep up this constant stream

of thoughts and feelings. It is like a horror movie: you

wonder, “What lies beneath?” You feel a bit of desperation

in your attempts to prop up this pattern.

Part 4: cutting Through to SimplicityOver time it becomes obvious that the fewer external

distractions you have, the more internal distractions you

cook up to replace them. The effort to keep this distraction-

thing going wears you down. It is tiresome, but it is clear

that you are doing this for a reason. You are using these

distractions to avoid facing something scary but essential.

You realize that this gigantic, self-created cover-up has

kept you from facing what is most heartfelt, raw, and true

about yourself. You see that when you’re less afraid, you

disempower this pattern of continual distractedness. And

you find that when you do so, you are capable of going

about your life with greater ease and simplicity. ♦

— j u d y l i E f

SHAMBHALA SUN MAy 2014 SHAMBHALA SUN MAy 2014 4948

We’re pleased to offer you this article from the new issue of Shambhala Sun magazine.

Like what you see? Then please consider subscribing.

$6.99 US / $7.99 Canada

Simple, powerful techniques for real relief

from what puts you on edge—at work, at home,

in relationships, and more. A special section

for living in a stressed-out world.

Always Beginner’s Mind

San Francisco Zen

Center at 50

The Novelist’s Path

Kim Stanley Robinson,

Susan Dunlap, Cary Groner

SHAMBHALA SUNB U D D H I S M C U LT U R E M E D I TAT I O N L I F E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 2

D I A N E A C K E R M A N • C H Ö G YA M T R U N G PA O N M A H A M U D R A • T H E V I R T U E S O F B O R E D O M • W A B I S A B I

Real Peacein Times of Stress

abacuswealth.com/shambhala888-422-2287

GRAND OPENING NEW YORK CITY SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA • LOS ANGELES • PHILADELPHIA

We’d like to think he would help people dedicate more time, money and energy to what matters most, and invest in a way that reduces suffering.

Our fi nancial advice is based on Nobel-prize winning research and the Buddhist practices of awareness, simplicity, equanimity, and non-harming.

Located at Rockefeller Center, our newest offi ce is close to Wall Street.

But not too close.

How WouldBuddhaOccupyWall St�eet?

$6.9

9 U

S /

$7.

99 C

anad

a

3 STEPS TO CREATIVE POWER • HOW TO LIVE IN OUR TOPSY-TURVY WORLD • NO-SELF 2.0

Pema Chödrön

Feminine PrincipalWomen teachers changing Buddhism

ICU for the SoulPico Iyer on the healing power of retreat

Don’t Go ThereA Jewish Buddhist in Germany

B U D D H I S M C U LT U R E M E D I TAT I O N L I F E N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 2

A Greater HappinessThe compassionate life of the bodhisattva-warrior

B U D D H I S M C U LT U R E M E D I TAT I O N L I F E J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 4

RAM DASS • HOW TO PRACTICE MET TA • ARE YOU TRULY L ISTENING? • ANYEN RINPOCHE

Joyful Giving’Tis always the seasonWhat Makes Us Free?Practical and profound guidance from

Jack Kornfield & Joseph GoldsteinBe a Lamp Unto Yourself Unpacking the Buddha’s famous exhortation

Thich Nhat HanhSit in on a transformational retreat—and exclusive interview—with this masterful teacher of Zen and mindfulness.

ABOUT USThe Shambhala Sun is more than today’s most popular Buddhist-inspired magazine. Practical, accessible, and yet profound, it’s for people like you, who want to lead a more meaningful, caring, and awakened life.

From psychology, health, and relationships to the arts, media, and politics; we explore all the ways that Buddhist practice and insight benefit our lives. The intersection between Buddhism and culture today is rich and innovative. And it’s happening in the pages of the Shambhala Sun.

JOIN US ONLINEShambhalaSun.com | Facebook | Twitter

CLICK HEREto subscribe and save 50% immediately.