“Take Therefore No Thought For The Morrow”
Non-attachment and attention in the present moment
My Thought For The Day that was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 yesterday.
A friend relates the stresses of getting up in the morning. Her child has stubbed a toe but is it broken, poor kid? Simultaneously, the radio on, there is news of bombs again in the Middle East. And then, another worry: the erratic weather and what that might mean for a shifting climate. On top of that again, a background of disturbed domestic politics. Where is that leading? A hotch-potch of anxieties mount up.
My friend and I talk about how to handle these confused concerns, some smaller, some massive; some nearer, some afar. They crash in on us. Little wonder that some people become politically frazzled or mentally fatigued – or over-stimulated or drop out altogether.
The wisdom traditions offer advice on how to deal with such turbulence. A label often given to this advice is non-attachment. The idea is not to not care. But rather to learn a skilfulness in how you care.
Jesus was one figure who taught as much, captured in sayings such as: “Give no thought for the morrow.” To be preoccupied with what might happen, or how things might go, is paralysing. And freezing in the present moment, or conversely over-reacting, is a disaster because the present moment is the only one to which you can respond well.
The advice continues with caring for the soul, or how we are in the world, which effects how we act in the world. Or to put it another way: tend to the jostling facets of ourselves, what might be called our temperamental inner community. That internal unrest shapes our interactions with the wider community that exists around and about us. How we are inside will much effect how we are in the outside world.
Cultivating a non-attached attention also opens up awareness of something spiritual. Staying with what is present is an admission that there are many things that we cannot control and, crucially, that we will let them be. This is not a failure but the gaining of a wider perspective. And then, it is possible to see that the modest good we can do is part of a wider good, which can be called God.
There is a mental cost to feeling trapped in myriad troubles, but there is a spiritual liberty to find. Care with our attention brings that freedom – which is what I found with my friend.
Her child with the stubbed toe was OK. The wider world certainly knows suffering, but there is also a goodness in the world that we can find and amplify.
DATES COMING UP!
23 June - Excited that there is a Philosophy Slam! live with Robert Rowland Smith at the Union Club, London.
25-28 June - Much anticipating the Realisation Festival, a gathering for the soul, with speakers including Sharon Blackie on myth, Nikki Trott on business, Charles Foster on edges, Tom Chatfield on AI. Do consider joining us!
7 July - The next of the Dialogues with Rupert Sheldrake and myself, on Art and the Sacred Today, at The King’s Foundation, London.
10 July - I’m speaking at Wisdom and Psyche: The Interface of Wisdom and Psychology at Blackfriars, Oxford.
10-12 July - The super-friendly Idler Festival, at Fenton House, Hampstead, including Philosophy Slam! wth Robert Rowland Smith and a talk with me on psychotherapy.
23 July - I’m chairing a Temenos Academy talk with the brilliant Claire Gilbert entitled Restoring Porosity: Julian of Norwich and the Ecological Crisis.
This is wonderful. I know there is wisdom in Buddhism but I want to understand it through a Christian lens. Thank you.
Hey, Mark — I remember your video series on Dante, and thought you’d be interested in a new terza rima translation of The Inferno I’ve been publishing. The first 3 cantos are on my Substack page; new cantos are published on Sundays. I’d be honoured if you took a look!