Absolutely unmixed attention is…

“Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.”

~ Simone Weil

"[The French philosopher Simone Weil said, ‘Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.’] I love that. I think that could be as close as someone can get to a wonderful definition of prayer. In that sense, prayer has nothing spiritual or religious about it. A mathematician working at a problem or a little kid trying to pick out scales on the piano is a person at prayer. She’s not saying prayer is absolute unmixed attention; it’s the other way. The attention itself is the quality that she wants to call prayer. So whatever context you’re putting it in, whether it’s inside a church or inside a toy box, that’s the quality that is the sacred one."

—Translator Stephen Mitchell via Krista’s Journal: Approaching Prayer.

Sources:

1. Post: Thank you via Crashingly Beautiful via It’s Like This.
2. Image by artist Vladimir Queiroz Sejas. Thank you Anake Goodall.