Recently I read a wonderful article in the New Yorker magazine about attention… how our culture has made it hard to maintain it.
The article included a description of a semi-secret group called the Order of the Third Bird. The name of the Order is based on an ancient story about an artist named Zeuxis who painted a portrait of a boy holding a cluster of grapes. When the artist was done with the painting, three birds showed up. One of them pecked at the image of the grapes – thrilling the artist that he had made the grapes look so real. Another saw the boy in the painting and flew away out of fear, which also made the artist feel impressed with himself for creating a human image so realistic that it would frighten a bird.
But the third bird stood back and contemplated the painting for quite a while.
Members of the Order of the Third Bird gather, in something like a flash mob, at art galleries or other art installations, and go through a series of attentional practices.
The first step for the Order is to figure out which artwork to which they will attend. Usually it is an obscure piece. They mill around until they gather at the chosen artwork and then they “attend” to it, staring at it intently for seven minutes. (This often makes gallery security staffers nervous.) In this time they are discouraged from having judgments or opinions about the artwork – they just look with open, unfiltered attention.
A bell is rung and then the group wanders off, no longer looking at the art, and they try to clear the image of the artwork from their minds. Next, they ponder in silence about what the artwork “needs”, in either a concrete or abstract way. Does it need to be appreciated with background music, or does it need to be turned upside down? The “Birds” then write down their experience of the whole process. And then they gather at a café to discuss what they discovered.
The attentive process of the Order of the Third Bird resonates very strongly with old Christian contemplative practices. Richard of St. Victor expressed this, as a teacher of monks in the 12th century: “Thinking always passes from one thing to another by a wandering motion; meditation endeavors perseveringly with regard to some one thing; contemplation diffuses itself to innumerable things under one ray of vision.” Spiritual practice moves between and among these forms of attention. The Christian mystics discovered that one-pointed focus yields to a wide peripheral vision - a sense of the wholeness and unity of all.
Isn’t that the essence of holy awe itself—being absorbed with appreciative attention by something that ultimately is beyond your mind’s ability to grasp or manage? - contemplating it with loving, patient focus, and gently letting insight into and from it to emerge, in its own time.
By compassionately, carefully observing things, we are able to apprehend the bigger pictures of our lives.