October 16^th, 2026

Appropriate Attention

Several years ago, I came back to the US, after being in Thailand for some time, on Election Day of 2020. As I was preparing to come back, one of the teachers whom I spoke to, Ajahn Siripanyo, said, “When you return, you can look at the news every now and again, but only if you can make the determination not to let it give rise to even one unwholesome mind-state.” That’s a tall order, right? I said, OK, and he said, “Look, remember, America is just one big convention.”

The Buddha has a term called “appropriate attention” (Pali: yoniso manasikara). Yoni means womb, and manasikara means attention, action of the citta, of the mind. This idea of attention goes to the heart, the womb, the source of things. That that attention is, in a very real sense, what births all states of our mind and heart is a central teaching. The Buddha says that just as the dawn, the band of light on the horizon, signals the coming of the sun, so, too, does yoniso manasikara, appropriate attention, precede the arising of the noble eightfold path.

This idea of the importance of attention is a central teaching in Buddhism. It’s a sankhara, which in Buddhist terminology means it’s a program, a formation, which energizes what it looks at. And appropriate attention is especially significant because, in the words of G. W. F. Hegel “Evil lies in the gaze that sees evil all around it.”

I remember my dad, he’s a practitioner, visiting some relatives a few years ago. There’s a famous saying in Buddhism that if you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family. And so, at his relative’s home, the conversation turned to politics. And my dad got up, and he went over to where the dog was lying on the ground, and he lay down with the dog.

So how do we become conscientious objectors in the culture wars? It’s a bit of anathema to the American psyche, what it means to have a part of society that’s not political. And yet it’s one of the key functions of the sangha in Thailand, to have some realm where people can enter and they’re not this or that; they’re just Buddhist. They’re just practitioners. They don’t even have to be Buddhist. They’re just people looking for refuge... Everyone deserves dhamma. It’s important to have a part of society where that connection can occur. Ironically, that’s actually how a lot of these things resolve themselves—by having some space where people can come together and be human together and that’s it.

Ajahn Nisabho, Tricycle Magazine, Sep 08, 2026