I think they’re the same thing, ‘sensuous attention’ is just ‘attention in a sensuous way’
Attention: “notice taken of someone or something”
So it’s taking notice of things in a sensuous way, that is, based on the senses rather than affect.
It’s interesting because in the article Richard also emphasizes the importance of not side-stepping the emotions when they are happening:
It is impossible for one to intelligently observe what is going on within if one does not at the same time acknowledge the occurrence of one’s various feeling-tones with attentiveness. This is especially true with the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful). In order to observe one’s own fear, for instance, one must admit to the fact that one is afraid. Nor can one examine one’s own depression, for another example, without acknowledging it fully. The same is true for irritation and agitation and frustration and all those other uncomfortable emotional and passionate moods. One cannot examine something fully if one is busy denying its existence.
So with that in mind, sensuous attention is something that happens specifically when emotion/affect is out of the way, so the attention is there to be given to whatever is sensuous-sensitively happening.
This has to do with the advice that @Srinath and @Felix have been emphasizing in the other thread, which is to ensure that felicity is happening before/while ‘looking’ for sensuousness.
And I’ve said it elsewhere but I am certainly one of those who has gotten stalled by emphasizing ‘sensuousness’ without ensuring that felicity is firmly in place.
Richard equates felicity with delight and happiness as well.