The cultivation of present time attention is our method and our objective. What that means is not obvious and to do it is not easy. But having this idea as our north star is valuable, and we fill in the details as we study and practice.
First, we live a life of good relations with other people. It is good for everyone, and makes our world more peaceful and stable. We conduct ourselves with restraint in desire, and in sense experience, which deepens our peace and clarity of mind.
Then we can practice well.
We can use many methods to practice. For example we can place our attention on the sensation of our breath moving in and out, at a specific point on our upper lip or nostrils. Then if our attention moves, we notice it and return it to where we want it. Using this method we get deeper and more stable and more joyful. That happens naturally by practicing.
We can place the mind on our whole body; on the constituents of the body; on our postures as we walk; on our postures as we move through kata. By developing our present-time attention we are able to set aside the mental turbulence generated by the continuous flow of memories, desires, fears, regret and attachment. As we stabilize and sharpen our present-time awareness, we get the freedom to see clearly, to experience directly and to act skillfully.
In action, from the most vigorous to the most tender, from the mundane to the transcendent, we need this clarity.
As we practice attending to real-time experience in the present moment we cultivate bare attention, also called mindfulness, with clear comprehension of whatever it is we are mindful of in that moment.
Bare attention describes a condition of mind in which our habitual proliferation of thoughts settle down and stop. This proliferation of mental activity happens continually, although we usually do not notice it. Here is how: Our senses are in contact with what we see, hear, smell, taste, touch and cognize, all the time. Our mind responds. There is a barrage of sense contact. Each contact gives us a feeling, each one connects with ideas, memories, emotions, labels, categories and words, and stimulates a proliferation of associations and mental activity of which we are unaware, but which we use to orient and to act, and which constitutes our operating environment. That proliferation is undetected, and we easily mistake it for objective reality. Our feelings and associations impose themselves on our experience and distort it. They form a barrier between experience and our understanding.
We overcome this through skill in present-time attention. It is obvious that if our attention is deflected in the heat of combat, we become vulnerable to attack and miss opportunities to respond. The same is true in every moment of life, in every action, reflection, and plan. So we stay sharp, using well-cultivated bare awareness of the present.
That way we can see our mind at work. We can see sense experience clearly. We can even see how the words we use, with their blurred definitions, categorical assumptions, and allusive, imprecise sounds, can produce errors in perception and understanding.
We bear the responsibility to make the most of our lives. To do this we cultivate bare attention, recovering our own nature, becoming healthy, skillful, flexible, strong and free.
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Post copyright © 2026 Jeffrey Brooks, MountainKarateNC.com, Yamabayashi Ryu, Mountain Karate Dojo, in the mountains of western NC.
Photo by Marc Olivier Jodoin via Unsplash
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read the book True Karate Dō by Jeffrey Brooks
“One of the best books I’ve read in years, inviting and compelling. Jeff Brooks moves effortlessly from martial arts to Buddhism to consciousness studies, self-transformation, and related fields in this wide-ranging and Illuminating study that has much to offer both novice explorers and veteran practitioners. A splendid achievement.”— Philip Zaleski, Editor, The Best Spiritual Writing series