Schools and society have been training us for years to focus our attention on specific things. The pressure to accomplish, achieve and excel is always present in everything we do. But we should never focus our attention so much that we are not also aware of the whole pattern. If we focus only on specific things we end up not being aware of all that is around us at any given time. Tom Brown Jr., who learned awareness and tracking skills from an old apache Indian, told me a story that is indicative of the danger of focusing too much attention on any one thing. Tom was called in to help find an individual who was believed to have killed his brother, wife and mother. The individual had disappeared into a forest after state police had pulled him over in his car. They searched for a week with a lot of manpower and dogs. But, the man they were searching for was an avid hunter, survivalist and mercenary. They were having no luck at all. They called in Tom who had been successful on hundreds of these searches. They took him by helicopter into the forest and dropped him, and a backup, off in the woods. Within an hour Tom found the suspect’s tracks. Within 3 hours of tracking he was within ½ hour of him. By reading the man’s tracks, and using expanded vision, Tom was able to close in on the suspect rapidly and was soon within 5 minutes of him. As Tom studied the 5-minute tracks he became concerned about some of the subtle marks within the tracks. He intently focused on the tracks trying to figure out what those marks were telling him. He’d seen them only a few times before, and was trying to remember what they meant. As he was bent over studying and focused only on the tracks, not doing any pausing to take in the whole pattern, he remembered what the subtle marks were telling him. It meant that the suspect knew someone was tracking him and was very close behind him. In that moment Tom realized he’d been paying too much attention to the tracks and not taking in the whole picture. He could hear his old Indian mentor’s voice in his head telling him to not focus so much on one thing. At that precise time he sensed someone behind him, and quickly stood and turned, just as a shot rang out which nicked him in the flesh of his back. Because Tom had stood and turned so quickly he shocked the suspect who was unable to get off a second shot before Tom subdued him. If Tom hadn’t expanded his awareness when he did, the shot that hit him in the flesh of his back would have hit him in the back of his head. It’s interesting what Tom has said about his first teaching by his mentor. He was just a young kid, but he had already become caught up in the unthinking rush of society, chasing irrelevant goals, gauging his actions by clocks and living with his eyes focused on the future. His Indian mentor’s first teaching was aimed at slowing him down, teaching him how to be calm, quiet and aware of all things, and periodically looking at the parts and pieces for identification and direction. We don’t all have an Indian mentor. But we all do have the ability to be calm, quiet, and aware and stop the habit of focusing on a partial existence. When we pause often and expand our vision to take in everything, our other senses expand and become more in tune with the surrounding patterns. A unique quality of silence comes with this expanded vision and supports a meditative state of mind. From this state of mind, all things can be seen and felt.
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