Trust Attention
“Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy.”
-Nisargadatta Maharaj
The road to trusting attention begins and ends with knowing what you are doing.
To be conscious means to be aware, to know.
Action perfects itself when you know. The shot fired itself, because you saw a perfect sight picture. It’s that simple.
For success in the high-speed, multiple-targets-at-any-distance world of practical shooting, being continuously aware is key. This flowing awareness relinquishes learned skills to the silent, knowing mind.
Failing is evidence of trying.
The challenge of competition: you get one chance to perfectly execute what you may have trained for years to perfect. Invariably, doubt creeps into performance. When you doubt, you try. When you try, you fail.

Obviously, Nisargadatta Maharaj does not try anything. And I like that shirt.
Trying turns off flowing awareness. You cannot maintain awareness if there is even the slightest trace of trying.
Attention is your perfection guarantee.
Eventually, unexpectedly an effortless ability-matching performance occurs. Your first thought: what did I do to make that happen. The answer is that you didn’t do anything. You did not try anything. You allowed attention to do everything.
You are now beginning to understand the meaning and value of trusting attention. I know that if my only goal is to call every shot, for example, that’s all I need to do.
With repeated trust-driven successes, you will doubt less and trust and succeed more.
Finally, we start just doing. Now everything is much simpler, and we know what it means to just do. Like when you take out the trash, you see what needs done and do it, without thinking or evaluating.
Throw out your cares… About how you shoot, where you finish, what your friends might think—then who is left to do the shooting? Your flawless pure ability that you’ve earnestly trained for years, that’s who.
Stop trying and let the knowing of pure awareness run the show.
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I’ll post a new topic each Friday afternoon, in one of two categories. One will be on shooting, and the other will be on living. Or: how I learned to live from what I learned by competing.
Thanks for coming in.