EBOOK
How to Focus
A Monastic Guide For An Age Of Distraction
John CassianSeries: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers3.5
(2)
About
How you can learn to focus like a monk without living like one
Distraction isn't a new problem. We're also not the first to complain about how hard it is to concentrate. Early Christian monks beat us to it. They had given up everything to focus on God, yet they still struggled to keep the demons of distraction at bay. But rather than surrender to the meandering of their minds, they developed powerful strategies to improve their attention and engagement. How to Focus is an inviting collection of their strikingly relatable insights and advice-frank, funny, sympathetic, and psychologically sophisticated.
This wisdom is drawn from John Cassian's fifth-century CE Collationes, one of the most influential manuals for monks from late antiquity. The Collationes follow Cassian and his friend Germanus as they travel around Egypt, asking a series of sage monks how they can make their minds stronger. In response, these monks offer a range of techniques for increasing focus, including setting goals, training the body, managing the memory, using mantras, taking breaks, consulting others-and, most of all, being honest about yourself. As Cassian and Germanus eventually realize, we can't escape distraction-but we can learn how to confront it and, eventually, to concentrate.
Featuring an engaging new translation by Jamie Kreiner and the original Latin on facing pages, How to Focus can help even the least monkish of us to train our attention on what matters most. Jamie Kreiner is professor of history at the University of Georgia and the author of The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction. "The human brain has not changed much in fifteen hundred years, and modern readers sorely need the wisdom, comfort, and practical advice of John Cassian and his desert hermit colleagues. Kreiner's lively translation brings these monks alongside us as friends and disarms us with advice on how to face the destructive mental habits and deep spiritual longing that lie beneath our addictions to pinging phones and glowing screens."-Molly Worthen, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
"Jamie Kreiner's vivid translation invites modern readers into a timeless conversation on the very human challenge of distraction. How to Focus contains a wealth of sage advice that is as helpful and reassuring today as it was centuries ago. It's a must-read for anyone who struggles to focus on their goals-that is, everyone."-Danièle Cybulskie, author of How to Live Like a Monk: Medieval Wisdom for Modern Life "Timely and inspiring."
Distraction isn't a new problem. We're also not the first to complain about how hard it is to concentrate. Early Christian monks beat us to it. They had given up everything to focus on God, yet they still struggled to keep the demons of distraction at bay. But rather than surrender to the meandering of their minds, they developed powerful strategies to improve their attention and engagement. How to Focus is an inviting collection of their strikingly relatable insights and advice-frank, funny, sympathetic, and psychologically sophisticated.
This wisdom is drawn from John Cassian's fifth-century CE Collationes, one of the most influential manuals for monks from late antiquity. The Collationes follow Cassian and his friend Germanus as they travel around Egypt, asking a series of sage monks how they can make their minds stronger. In response, these monks offer a range of techniques for increasing focus, including setting goals, training the body, managing the memory, using mantras, taking breaks, consulting others-and, most of all, being honest about yourself. As Cassian and Germanus eventually realize, we can't escape distraction-but we can learn how to confront it and, eventually, to concentrate.
Featuring an engaging new translation by Jamie Kreiner and the original Latin on facing pages, How to Focus can help even the least monkish of us to train our attention on what matters most. Jamie Kreiner is professor of history at the University of Georgia and the author of The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction. "The human brain has not changed much in fifteen hundred years, and modern readers sorely need the wisdom, comfort, and practical advice of John Cassian and his desert hermit colleagues. Kreiner's lively translation brings these monks alongside us as friends and disarms us with advice on how to face the destructive mental habits and deep spiritual longing that lie beneath our addictions to pinging phones and glowing screens."-Molly Worthen, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
"Jamie Kreiner's vivid translation invites modern readers into a timeless conversation on the very human challenge of distraction. How to Focus contains a wealth of sage advice that is as helpful and reassuring today as it was centuries ago. It's a must-read for anyone who struggles to focus on their goals-that is, everyone."-Danièle Cybulskie, author of How to Live Like a Monk: Medieval Wisdom for Modern Life "Timely and inspiring."