Meditation involves concentration. And concentration, as one observes, is a way of exclusion. That is, concentration implies forcing thought in one particular directed direction, excluding all else. That is generally what is meant by concentration. To concentrate upon, to direct, to focus your mind. And in doing that you exclude, you put a barrier, build a wall so that no other element, thought, influence enters.
And in doing that there is a dualistic process at work, a division, a contradiction, which is fairly obvious, into which we need not go, because our time is very limited and we have to deal, in this hour, a great deal. So meditation is something other than concentration, though concentration is necessary, meditation involves much more than concentration, or control of thought.
And it involves attention, not concentration: to attend. That means to give your mind, your heart, your body passionately to attend to something. In that attention, if you observe very carefully, there is neither the thinker nor the thought, neither the observer nor the observed, but only a state of attention. And to attend so completely, so fully, there must be freedom.
So here begins the whole problem: that is, to attend completely both intellectually, emotionally, with your eyes, with all the response, awakened response, and being aware of those responses, from which comes freedom. It is only a mind that is completely free that can attend. And that is not so difficult, don’t give it an extraordinary meaning, it is very simple.
If you listen to something attentively, whether it is to music, or when the coyotes of an evening call to each other, with that weird cry, or when you listen to a bird, or when you listen to the voice of your wife or husband, to give attention to it. And you do when the challenge is very great, immediate. Then you listen most extraordinarily. You listen when it is profitable, when it is painful, when you are going to get something out of it, but when there is a reward in that listening there is always the fear of losing.
So in attention there is freedom. A free mind is only capable of attention in which there is no achievement or gaining or losing or fear. And that is necessary because it is only a quiet attentive mind that can understand this immense problem of living.
And it is only the quiet meditative mind... (sound of child) It is only the quiet meditative mind that can come upon what is called love. And so we are going to attend, and we are going to learn together what it means to attend. And it is only that attentive mind that is the meditative mind. We are going to learn, not accumulate knowledge - accumulating knowledge is one thing and learning is another. And we are going to learn together about this problem of living, which is relationship, which is love, which is death.