The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness

The condition in which the mind “stands back” to observe its own state and activities is called metacognitive introspective awareness.13 Attention, on the other hand, can’t observe activities of the mind because its movements and abstracting of information from awareness are activities of the mind. In other words, we can’t attend to attention.

This sequence is so important it’s worth committing to memory—the untrained mind produces distractions that lead to forgetting, which results in mind-wandering

Once you have moved through the four steps and attention is restricted to the breath at the nose, start silently counting each breath.

Developing raw mental power is the other part that often gets overlooked. Without this increase in power, you won’t get very far in cultivating mindfulness;

Once you’ve succeeded in counting to five or ten, keep observing the breath sensations, but stop counting. Counting quickly becomes automatic, and you can still forget the breath and have your mind wander while continuing to count.

Awakening is an accident, but continued practice will make you accident-prone.

Resolve to hold the goals you’ve set very lightly, to find enjoyment in every meditation no matter what happens, and to savor any achievement. Simply sitting down to practice is an accomplishment.

So let go of expectations and generate an attitude of faith, trust, and confidence: faith in the method, trust that the results will come with continued practice, and confidence in your own ability. Joyful effort and diligence are the right attitude.

Mindfulness is the optimal interaction between attention and peripheral awareness.