Focused Attention Meditation

Focused attention meditation is a mindfulness technique where you concentrate on a single point—such as the breath, a sound, or a visual object—and continuously return your focus to it when the mind wanders. It strengthens attentional control, reduces stress, and improves concentration by retraining the brain to ignore distractions.

Transcript

Welcome to this 15-minute focused attention meditation. Starting by shifting the attention to the space you're in perhaps by what you can see or what you can hear, What you can feel. Temperature. Clothes on the skin. And slowly bringing the attention to the body. Noticing the. . . Points of contact. With the floor, The chair, Cushion. If you haven't already. May be supportive softening the gaze or closing the eyes as we shift more of the attention to the body. Inviting us to practice. Patience and care. In this meditation as we will be working with our wandering mind. As we will be focusing our attention and thus training that capacity. And we'll explore by. . . First bringing attention to the sensations of breathing. And then we'll explore some other anchors we can. . . Used to support us. In stabilizing and maintaining our attention in the present moment. Therefore, The first invitation is to move your attention. To the sensations of breathing in the middle of the body. The torso. Belly, The chest, The back, The sides. Keeping your attention as best you can. In this part of the body. As this area expands and as this area contracts with each new breath. When the mind begins to analyze, Jump in the future or the past. Just noticing that kindly. Patiently. And moving the attention back. Back to the sensations of breathing in this part of the body. Mind wanders again. Practicing the same patience and care. Even on the thousandth or ten thousandth time. Our minds have evolved to think. Moving the attention now to the neck, The throat area. And paying attention to the sensations of breathing here. Guiding your attention now to the area around the nostrils if you are breathing through your nose and if you are breathing through your mouth. The area around the lips concentrating and narrowing your attention. The sensations of breathing here. Maybe noticing. Tingling. Itching. Or a change in temperature as you breathe in. As you breathe out. If at any point it's difficult to Notice the sensations of breathing. The recommendation just for a few rounds of the breath. To breathe more deeply. More heavily. And then letting that go. Shifting the attention to the sensations there. Not trying to fight against or control or stop the thought. The noise, The distractions, The stimulus. Just acknowledging that that's there. Part of the experience now. As you keep that concentrated Focus the tension on the sensations of breathing. As if the sensations of breathing are the blue sky. Always there. Ever present. And everything else is just the cloud. Just the weather. As well as to the breath one can focus their attention on other parts of the body. Perhaps taking some time now to explore what it's like. To keep that focused attention on the sensations in the feet. Point of contact. The temperature. The degree of moisture or dryness. Maybe anything else that you are noticing in the feet. One can do the same with the attention on the sit bone. Butt cheek. And or the hands, The finger. This may be. . . A great addition or an alternative. If the sensations of breathing aren't working for you at this time and in this place. You may also shift the attention. Somewhere else in the body that's very vivid and clear and present for you to focus on. And or move to an external anchor. Something you can listen to, Something you can hear. Or even something you can see. With the eyes closed, We can Look at the back of the eyelids. Focusing attention there. With the eyes open, We can Focus. Soften the gaze on a single point Sometimes one of these points or one of these anchors we've been exploring works better than the other. Sometimes we might use a few. Knowing that. . . There's. . . Lots of different anchors practicing and finding which one works best for you. Maintaining an openness and curiosity. As well as a patience and kindness. To our minds. Wandering. We will begin now to. . . Shift the tension. Out of this Meditation. Inviting you to keep some of your attention on the body or the breath or another anchor. As you proceed to whatever's next in your day. Practicing keeping attention in the present moment. As you speak and listen and interact. With other beings, With life itself. Thank you kindly. All the best.