Excerpt from "The Book of Little Things"

"I teach that when it rains, the pavements get wet." George I. Gurdjieff

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Before beginning... a Forward!

During a meeting at Fontainebleau (1923-25) someone asked Gurdjieff: How can we gain attention?

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What small things can we start on?

Gurdjieff: You have nervous, restless movements which make people think you are a booby and have no authority over yourself. The first thing is to see these movements and stop them. If you work in a group this may help; even your family can help. Then you can stop these restless movements. Make this your aim, then afterwards perhaps you can gain

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He said: ... In general, few people have attention. It is possible to divide ones attention into two or three parts. In this work you must try to gain attention. Only when you have gained attention can you begin to observe yourself and know yourself. You must start on small things.

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The book you are reading just at this moment is just what you think it to be: a practical handbook about how to achieve a concrete state of presence dedicated to these little things, so simple that they could be performed even by a child. A concentrate of "little" but efficient practices that can be performed by everyone, without too many theoretical speculations. There are still books of such type. We said simple, but beware: simple doesn't mean easy. Indeed, the way we have been educated, the beliefs, the ideas that have been inculcated in us have made us complicated, far from what we could be and do.

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attention. This is an example of doing. Everyone, when he begins in this work, wishes to do big things. If you start on big things you will never do anything. Start on small things first. If you wish to play melodies and begin to play them without much practice you will never be able to play real melodies, and those you play will make people suffer so that they will hate you. It is the same with psychological things. To gain anything real, long practice and much work is necessary. First try to do small things. If you aim at big things first you will never do anything or be anything. and your actions will irritate people and cause them to hate you.

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Nothing you will find in this book is useless superfluous: everything can be used immediately practice in order to achieve a higher state presence and efficiency. Indeed, this is the aim this book.

So, fewer theories and more practice will be our maxim.

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To be sincere, I avoided publishing this book just because of the above mentioned reasons, hoping that it will be forgotten. From the moment I announced the publication of this book, I had received dozens of emails and messages from people who asked where they can find this book, when this book will be released and if it will be a practical book or another text with theories and stories about the beauty of living the here and now. As mentioned, this is a book devoted to practice, so

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I would like to share with you an intimate secret: from the moment I announced the release of this text, I became concerned just for the reason that for writing it, I took from the shelf, the old diaries I kept during the first ten years of my apprenticeship in self-development. I chose the practices that preceded the period when I felt for the first time, a "stable center of gravity" inside of me as a matter of fact, and no longer a theory read in some book or heard from the mouth of a teacher.

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they ordered and waited for a copy. Now this wait has ended and the book is here.

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It was a surprising thing for me, and also for this person who asked to continue with her apprenticeship under my direction. Despite what I told her that I wasn't a teacher, she persisted, and today she is my coworker with whom I share my path. After that, other people tried on their own, these same exercises, and more or less, they attained some results, depending on the diligence with which the exercises were confronted and performed.

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Three years ago I suggested the same practices to whom could be called my "first pupil", even if I don't consider myself a teacher, but rather a human being willing to share what he knows with others. I just greeted her and gave her the exercises. In a week and a half, that person felt for the first time, a spontaneous moment of effective presence, not a glimpse, but something concrete and intense: the Zanshin of the Zen teachers or, if you prefer, the self-remembering explained by Gurdjieff. A moment that lasted a few minutes and vanished, but soon returned periodically again and again.

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Close to the practical form, the second maxim of this book is the simplicity - a simplicity that is not ingenuity, uselessness or less efficacy. Indeed. As Gurdjieff, "the teacher of the demanding path" said in the quote cited at the beginning of this book, he taught about simple, little and obvious things. So this is the line followed in this book. While performing the practices suggested here, you'll resonate with the echoes of ancient, and modern practices for self-development.

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A Universal Science for Being.

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These practices are in the tradition of great men such as Buddha, Giordano Bruno, Agrippa, Gurdjieff, Krishnamurti, Atkinson, Steiner and other individuals who, throughout history, devoted their lives to the study of Universal principles and human nature, drawing a unique science, integral in its form and, what is also important - free from every kind of dogmatism and sectarianism.

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Check out Your Presence

If our plan is to incorporate the principle of presence in our daily life, which is the aim of this book, we need a good and concrete basis from which to begin to fulfill this purpose. Since this book is, as it is, of practical nature, this step must also be practical. We all know that we don't experience the present moment, otherwise you wouldn't consider to read this book.

Indeed, it's silly and impossible to take every kind of plan without having determined the starting point from which we must begin. And we need concrete, practical facts that belong to a heuristic, direct experience.

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So, the first thing to do is to begin to ask ourself, and answer this question:

How much am I present to the moment?

In order to fulfill this aim, we'll begin with using a

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simple, but useful and efficient tool able to show us the quality of our connection with the present moment, in simple and human words, how much we are present... to the present moment. So, the first step is to begin to take a moment to try, experience, memorize and make yours, this exercise that will be the starting point for all the further tasks proposed in this book. Since our ability to experience the present moment is strictly related to our degree of awareness, what you'll have to do is to check out your degree of awareness.

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You'll do this through verifying the following questions: 1. How much can I be aware of my breath?

2. How many times during the course of the day can I recover voluntarily, the awareness interrupted by various distractions?

There is also a third aspect that can determine your degree of awareness and it is related to how many events and objects we can be aware of at the same

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Before describing the practice, make the commitment that during the next week or two you'll verify seriously, with diligence and rigor, your degree of awareness - namely, how much you are able to invoke and maintain a state of intentional and focused attention during a day.

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time. Even if fundamental, this aspect is not of our interest for the purpose of this practice, so for now, we'll put it aside and we'll face it further on in the book.

So, let's begin.

All you will need is a piece of cord, a notebook and your breath.

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1. In order to understand well what you have to do, begin with paying attention to your breath, without modifying it. Don't think about it. Just notice the areas where you can physically sense the process of breathing: your chest, your belly, your nostrils... one area is enough. That is, for now, all that you must do with your breath. How much time passes before a thought, a distraction or something else, makes you forget to follow the breath? Probably, if you are trained, a minute or two, probably less, but it's not important. What is important is that you take

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Seeing that we need an anchor to the present moment, we have to find something that is continuous in us, and one of the few things that has this quality, is our breath.

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an approximal note about how long you had been able to follow your breath before something made you forget your purpose. Write the results in your notebook.

This is what you must do for the next week or two.

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But beware! You mustn't cheat. Be sincere with yourself. No one has to know about the experiment you are performing, so you haven't to prove to anyone your abilities of being attentive. What you are doing is an experiment, and you have to take it as so. You are checking out your degree of awareness, that's all. So, if you wish to have some results, you mustn't cheat, and that's of value also for all the practices that will be explained in this book....

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2. Check how much time during the day you'll be able to remember to follow your breath and, every time you do it, you'll make a knot on the cord you obviously should always have with you during the whole week or two of the duration of the practice. At the end of every day, pick up your cord and count the knots: you'll have the exact number of times you remembered to follow your breath during the day. Write the results in your notebook.

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