Is the focus of your attention important?

[Gareth]

Here's a question that has been intriguing me for a while:

I've been studying mindfulness and meditation for quite some time now. The vast majority of guided meditations, meditation schools etc advocate using the breath as the focus of your attention. I got speaking to an experienced meditator the other week, who has been on many meditation retreats. She told me that the group meditations are exclusively centred on breath. I was also talking to David (rara) a while back, who told me that people who had advised him on mindfulness had advised that he not used sound as a basis for his meditations.

This all seems a little odd to me. For me at least, mindfulness meditation is essentially about practicing holding the attention in a particular place and returning it there when it goes away. Since I began meditating, most of my meditations have been sound based, either ambient music, or the ambient sounds that are happening around me. I always found the attention easier to hold this way, and I felt like my practice deepened more quickly because of it.

I couldn't do eyes open meditation for a long time until I became more adept at the practice, it gradually became easier for me. I can pretty much do any type of meditation these days, except for the difficulties I have with the body scan. That said, I still feel like sound-based meditation is most suited to me, with my eyes closed.

Recently, for experimentation, I have done breath based meditation for a solid three weeks, just to see if I can notice any kind of difference. I can't really. It feels like a remarkably similar experience to a sound based meditation, with the attention perhaps being marginally easier to hold with sound based. I guess the question I'm asking is: does it matter? Surely you just pick the type of meditation which suits you best and go with it, but if this is the case why do all the meditation teachers instruct breath based meditation? On the Everyday Mindfulness account, I am tweeting and telling people that it doesn't matter how you choose to meditate. I also believe that the less instruction with regards to mindfulness meditation the better. People need to find their own way. Am I right in thinking this?

Gareth

[One Aware]

Hi Gareth:

I think you are right in your thinking. There is a type of awareness termed "Choiceless Awareness" or "Pure Awareness" which can really focus on anything that comes up in your awareness during our present moment experience so I don't think that any particular object of attention is better than any other. Since we are focusing on our present moment experience any object of our attention that happens to be ocurring in the "here and now" should keep us in the present moment until our mind wanders to the past or future and we bring it back once again. The breath is convenient as you know because it is always with us from one present moment to the next (unless we are dead of course LOL)).

[LoveBeforeAllElse]

I would definitely say that whatever keeps you into the practice should be considered the top priority. Once you have raised your baseline level of focus enough though, you'll find it easy to meditate on any one thing you choose. My own practice has a heavy grounding in focus on the breath.

Here's why I think mindfulness of breath is DEFINITELY a practice that you should keep at when you feel ready. It's easier to focus on something that you have experience practicing with, right? For you, mindful listening is much easier than mindful breathing. But what if you want to conjure up some focus before or during something like a meeting? You may not always have some headphones that you can throw in real quick to do so(not that you need to rely on anything to be mindful). I'm just saying, your breath will ALWAYS be there. It's awesome to be able to raise your focus on the fly. One of my goals is to reach a point in my life where I am mindful of every breath from then on.

On top of all that, I've had some amazing spiritual experiences through just realizing how amazing it is that my chest moves up and down to keep me alive. The act of consciously observing your breath becomes a mystical experience that you can enter into anytime you wish.

[Gareth]

It's not that I find mindfulness of breath too difficult; I still do it from time to time, as a like a bit of variety in my practice. Like you say, if you just want to grab a minute of mindfulness n the day to bring you back, then it's perfect.

It's just that I generally find sound an easier and more productive way to practice. I don't only use my headphones either. I really love bringin my attention to the ambients sounds around me. Birds singing, rain falling, distance sounds from my wife pottering around the house. These sounds create a beautiful audio landscape that I enjoy to walk through.

Gareth

[larorra]

Sound works for me as i walk mindfully to work early Morning and the soumds of nature, birds, Wind and rustling leaves serves as the perfect background for my meditating, equally, i am happy with the breaths when i m sitting at home i havent trired listening to any music as i feel i Would loose my concentration. I guess whatever works for each of us is fine.

[rara]

I think the advice I was given was mainly saying to eventually move away from using sound...as a personal spiritual goal for what I am using my meditation for...

Thought I'd jump in and just let y'all know in case anyone gets slightly misguided by thinking they're doing it wrong.

Please go by your own instincts

[LoveBeforeAllElse]

It's great to know that we can all just accept what others are doing. We all only know what we've experienced and heard about. It's the only way that we can help each other. Open mindedness is a great quality that is brought about in practicing mindfulness!