So starting this short practice with a few deep breaths,
Feeling the body relaxing on the out breath,
And if there are any areas of tension or tightness in the body,
Maybe in the shoulders,
Maybe in the brow,
Seeing if you can just let that go,
Allowing it to relax,
And getting a sense of the whole body relaxing,
Finding a posture which is comfortable but embodies a certain alertness,
And gently bringing attention to the sensations of breathing,
Wherever you usually follow the breathing,
Wherever is easiest.
Seeing if you can follow the sensations of breath through the in breath and through the out breath,
And then starting again.
And at some point while you're doing this practice,
You're likely to find that the mind has been wandering.
There'll be a moment of recognition,
You'll realize that attention is no longer on the breath,
No longer on the meditation object,
It's been lost in thought.
And the moment that you notice this,
This moment of awareness is a valuable opportunity to train the mind.
So the first thing that you may want to do is just to label the distraction,
So you remember the content of the distraction from a moment ago,
And give it a simple label,
Something like thinking,
Or planning,
Remembering,
Whatever feels right.
This is an optional step,
So if you can't remember the content of the distraction,
Or if it feels as though you may get sucked back into the distraction,
You can just skip this step for now.
The next thing to do is simply to relax.
Again noticing any tension that may have developed in the body while you were mind wandering,
And just allow that to relax.
Notice that the relaxing feels pleasant,
The body wants to relax.
Then you can notice anything else in your experience in that moment that feels pleasant.
There could be warmth in the hands,
Maybe your position is comfortable,
The quietness of the room may have a pleasant quality to it,
There may be some peacefulness,
Some calmness in the mind,
Which can be pleasant to tune into.
And it's important to notice this so that the moment of awareness,
The moment of noticing you were distracted is reinforced.
If it feels pleasant,
The mind will incline to do it again.
And in particular,
Noticing that now you're aware of what attention is doing,
There can often be an extra sense of spaciousness in the mind.
You have more choice over how you're using your attention.
There's more freedom in the mind than there was when you were mind wandering.
And there's usually some subtle pleasant quality to that sense.
So see if you can just tune into that,
Tuning into the way in which it's nicer to be aware than not to be aware.
When the mind sees clearly and knows deeply that it feels better to be aware,
Then mind wandering will stop seeming so appealing.
So just to recap the steps briefly,
There's the initial moment of recognition,
You can label the distraction,
Relax the body,
Notice that relaxing feels pleasant,
Noticing anything else in your current experience,
In your current state of mind,
Which is pleasant.
And in particular,
Noticing that it feels better to be aware,
To be mindful,
Than it does to not be aware.
So this needn't take more than a few seconds,
Though you can spend longer on it if it feels helpful to do so.
And then very gently bringing a curious attention back to the sensations of the breath.
