Focus on breath or thoughts?

[DJLSFC]

I like to focus on thoughts quite a bit and their reaction in the body. I used to have a lot of issues with generalised anxiety and I feel that focusing on thoughts is a very good method of keeping certain thoughts I still have, in context - sometimes, if I`m in the right mood, I try to intensify the thoughts and remember every detail of a past situation that troubles me and see how the body reacts to it - hopefully can prepare me for future difficulties.

Cheers, Dave.

[JonW]

Hi Dave,
Why would you need to intensify the thoughts? On face value, that approach sounds lacking in self-compassion.
Best wishes,
Jon

[Mr Happy]

Some days my thoughts run riot so I keep gently bringing my attention back to feeling my breath, other days I am swamped by emotions and/or moods so I shift my focus to mindfully holding them in awareness. Sometimes concerntration is strong so I let the breath go and watch thoughts and images pass then relax into open objectless awareness.
I tend to work with whatever presents itself, I tend to do 10 min sessions in the evening and mindful movement.
Quality over quantity and all that.

[Happyogababe]

Hi,
I know what you mean about wondering if you should be progressing to something else after grounding yourself with your breath, I have pondered that too. I have noted that once I have grounded myself either with breath or body scan or sounds (or whatever) I naturally begin to ''see what happens'', it is as though I am at a place where I feel relaxed and calm enough to ''simply be''. I don't always have that happen, some days my mind is much busier or sometimes my mind and body are exhausted or in pain (I have a health condition and at present I'm having a really bad patch so energy and fatigue and pain are pretty bad) and it is during these times that the breath helps me out the most and especially body scan.

[JonW]

'I know what you mean about wondering if you should be progressing to something else after grounding yourself with your breath, I have pondered that too.'

It's a very good point.
In Full Catastrophe Living (a book I would highly recommend), Jon Kabat-Zinn talks about progressing to 'choiceness awareness' – deliberately bringing your attention to whatever is unfolding in the moment: your own breathing, the sound of traffic outside…being open and receptive to whatever comes into the field of awareness…allowing everything to come and go.
That's pretty much how I meditate now. Rather than choose one anchor, I go into a meditation with the intention of paying attention to whatever comes up.
Cheers,
Jon

[Gareth]

I mix it up. Sometimes I use my breath, sometimes I use music, sometimes I go choiceless. Quite often, I am woken my one of the boys, and I will deliberately give my attention to him for half an hour. I find the latter to be a wonderfully energising practice.

[JonW]

'What we are building is the capacity to be aware in the moment it doesn't really matter what the object is.'

Never a truer word was spoken.

[Happy Buddha]

Hi guys, Suryacitta here. If you stay with this basic principle you cannot go far wrong - Awareness is primary, the object of awareness is secondary. What we are building is the capacity to be aware in the moment it doesn't really matter what the object is. When we get caught up like this - what should I be aware of breath, sounds or whatever - label it all as thinking. That is what it is. Cheers

[Spikeycloud]

Hi Gareth. I can manage 30 minutes just fine and I've been doing that every day for around a month now. Obviously thoughts come and go and some days my mind is busier than others but I feel 30 minutes is a good length - Not too short or too long. As for enlisting a teacher, I prefer to do things on my own - its just my nature I suppose. I have read a lot of stuff on meditation/mindfulness/yoga and am currently practicing these daily.

I just wondered if after my mind is relatively calm I should be doing something different other than staying with the breath...

All responses hugely appreciated.

Staying with the breath is obviously not a goal but a method to make it easier to get to your goals. I see it as teaching the mind to be present automatically so that you are completely aware and and make the best choices. If you are in the mind you are in the past or future and therefore not making any choice in the now - you are reliving a past event or a imaginated future - and therefore not making any change at all at that moment.