Focused Attention V Broad Awareness (+10 Minutes Of Silence)

In this session we practiced 'Mindfulness Skills: Focused Attention Vs Broad Awareness" followed by 10 minutes of silence.

Begin with a traditional mindful focus onto the sensations of the breath at the nose. If your mind wanders, gently and lovingly bring it back.

Then engage your broad awareness, keeping watch for sensations, thoughts, and other potential distractions.

Focused attention is like a laser. Sharp and specific, but easily pointed off course. Broad awareness is like peripheral vision. Catching everything, with minimal detail. Used together, these tools can greatly enhance mindfulness practice, and can help the benefits transcend the meditation mat and into everyday life. You are focused, but a part is always broadly aware of distraction.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the session, I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable and close down the eyes if you wish and begin taking some slow deep breaths in through the nose. Take a moment to scan your body and your mind space, Just taking note of any surface level feelings, Moods, Emotions, Tensions, And if they can be released, Release them. We're going to take another look at mindfulness meditation, But doing so within the context of the skill of focused attention versus broad awareness. So we'll begin with the traditional practice, Turning your attention, Focusing your attention on the sensations of the breath entering and leaving the nose. Let's try that now. If you notice your mind wandering, Gently, Lovingly, Return your attention back to the breath. The goal of our practice is not to have an empty mind, And although we're focusing the mind or our attention upon the breath of the nose, Our goal isn't exactly to even maintain that focus, Rather our highest goal is to become aware of the contents of consciousness, To notice where the mind is and then gently return it back to the breath, That's the goal. So if you do notice your mind wandering, Gently, Lovingly, Bring it back to the breath. We're using the concept of focused attention, We're focusing our attention on the breath. Now, Focused attention is almost akin to a laser, To a pointer pointing at something. We focus our attention and it stays on the breath. But the problem with the laser is, Is that it can shift and laser focus somewhere else. It's not very good, And this is the skill that we're developing. And it's not like initially, Particularly, It's not very good at staying in the one spot. And if it shifts, We can get hyper-focused somewhere else. The way we do this, The way we address this is through broad awareness, In tandem. This is a sort of a bit of an advanced technique, But we have our focused attention on the meditation object, But then we deploy also some broad awareness. This is like peripheral vision, We're pointing the laser of attention at the breath, But then we expand our senses wide as well, It's like a peripheral vision. We are looking through the microscope at an object, But with another eye or another sense, We're scanning everything. So we're aware of the sensations in the body, We are aware of the things we can see, Of the things we can hear, Of our thoughts. We're not focusing on them, But we're broadly aware of them. Maybe it's, For example, A 90% focus on the sensations of the breath at the nose, And a 10% focus, 10% awareness on these other things, Internal sensations, Information from your senses, Feelings within the body, Aspects of the mind space. We take note of them broadly, And it's like, Oh, We can see that there's a distraction coming. Maintain the focused attention on the breath, But there's a potential risk of a distraction here. Maintain the focus, Potential risk, Maintain the focus, Potential risk. In that way, We do our best to stay focused on the object of meditation. In practice, What we do is, Once again, Return your focus back to the breath when it's been lost. Maintaining that focus, But a small part of your mind is just like, Oh, There's an external thought that's coming. I'm aware of that now, Broadly aware that that's there, I'm not going to let that distract me. Back to the breath. Oh, There's some physical sensations that might. . . I'm acknowledging that their presence is there. Back to the breath. Basically, What we're doing is not letting ourself get blindsided by a thought or a sensation, Not letting the laser focus move somewhere else without our realization. Let's try for a minute or so, Once again, Sitting with the anchor of the breath, But broadly aware of all of the other things, Information from the senses, Within the body and the mind space. Let's try it now. Maintaining your focus on the sensations of the breath at the nose, Just become broadly aware also of what you can hear, What you can see, What you can feel. Become broadly aware of thought patterns and memories, All the while maintaining your focused attention on the sensations of the breath at the nose. And wonders, If it gets lost in thought, If you didn't see something in your broad awareness and it captured your attention, That's okay, Gently, Lovingly, Turn your focus back to the breath and re-engage the broad awareness. So today we practiced mindfulness with the addition of the concept of focused attention and broad awareness. Remember, Mindfulness is the awareness that arises from purposely paying non-judgmental attention to the present moment. We practice it by choosing a meditation object, Traditionally the breath, But it can be anything. When your mind wanders, You bring it back, But your focused attention is like a laser point that's controlled by a untrained monkey, The monkey mind. It points everywhere and darts around and it can be hard to focus that laser point and it can be easy for that laser point to dart off and for you not to even realize that the laser is pointing somewhere else. Focused attention is very sharp, But easily movable. So through regular mindfulness practice, We repeatedly return it back to the anchor. This trains it to point in the one direction. An additional tool that we can add is the concept of broad awareness. We apply 90% of our effort to maintaining the focus on the meditation object, Really feeling those sensations deeply. Mind wanders bring it back, Mind wanders bring it back, But we have about 10% of our mind capturing a broad awareness, Like a peripheral vision, Noting the sensations in the body, Noting the feelings, Thoughts, Moods, Memories of the mind space, Noting what we can hear, See and feel in this moment, Noting it all and being aware and sort of monitoring or checking to see if anything will distract us. That's the point. We have our focused awareness on the breath, Broad awareness on other things that can come and in that way, We don't get as easily blindsided or moved off from the meditation object. We can stay focused. This is a little bit of an advanced technique, But I encourage you to give it a try in your practice. Either way, Thank you for joining me and I'll see you in the next session. But if you would like, If you'd like to meditate for another 10 minutes, Perhaps practicing focused awareness, Focused attention and broad awareness, I invite you to do so. Let's begin. If you'd like to maintain the meditation, More than welcome to do so, But for everyone else, Returning back to the room, Back to the moment, Back to the space, I want to thank you for joining in. Just acknowledge the act of self-care that a daily meditation practice brings. It will help you both this day and ongoing. It's well done. Mindfulness is one of the pillars of mental health and this practice of using broad awareness to maintain our focused attention is one to practice and work on, So I encourage you to explore it. It will transcend the meditation mat and move into your daily life. Either way, Thank you again. I'll see you in the next session. Catch ya.