Question from reader: What does it mean to be impartial?
To be impartial is not to be in parts. Mostly we observe by one part observing another. We comment on what we see. This is what we call self-observing (rather than observing itself). We have opinions. We have preferences. We have reactions. These phenomena intermediate, separating attention from what is attended to. To be impartial is for attention to have no observer to separate and label experience.
The observer enters the observed and is thereby silenced.
To be impartial is to be without like and dislike, clinging and averting as the Buddha said. Impartial is between them and not them.
The opposite of impartial attention could be called headbrain attention. This attention is managed by thinking, funneled through thinking. In this way, it loses its force.
Impartial attention is a direct connection of the source of attention to what is attended. Perception is united to will. A bridge. An enormous amount crosses this bridge if not interfered. Real knowing, the real nature of a thing, comes immediately over this bridge without the limitation of our past-determined opinions and reactions.
