Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
How to Focus: A Monastic Guide for an Age of Distraction

How to Focus: A Monastic Guide for an Age of Distraction

Cassian, John
Kreiner, Jamie
Kreiner, Jamie

Hardcover

Series: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers

PhilosophyGeneral Psychology

Publisher Price: $18.95

ISBN10: 0691208085
ISBN13: 9780691208084
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: Jan 9 2024
Pages: 288
Weight: 0.75
Height: 1.40 Width: 4.50 Depth: 7.00
Language: English

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.

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