We have such a limited attentional budget that spending it listening to external sounds leaves less to allocate to the internal sounds of our mental chatter.

I'm not a snob about contemplative practice. I see zero shame in scrolling through Instagram during moments like these. I'm not trying to maintain monastic levels of composure throughout the day.

I just decided to explore what would happen if I fell back on what has proved paradoxically comforting in the past when waiting for potentially terrible news.

"Linguistic repetition, you learn from an early age, can give form or take it away, because it forces a confrontation with the malleability of language and the world we build with it, build upon it."

Ben Lerner

Any perception you can observe directly in real time can be used to train a variety of attention-related skills.

I like to make a game out of turning ordinary activities into opportunities for practice.

There are a number of exercises I use when watching a film — whether it’s one I enjoy, dislike, or have seen before.  

"Although emotional sensations can arise anywhere in the body, they are much more likely to arise in the belly, chest, throat, or face. These are the emotional hotspots in the body, the regions where emotional sensations can get huge. That means that other areas are much less likely to host gigantic emotional sensations, which turns out to be a useful and convenient thing."

Michael Taft

yù yī - 玉衣

n. the desire to see with fresh eyes, and feel things just as intensely as you did when you were younger—before expectations, before memory, before words.

It seems like stepping outside for a walk should be enough to clear our minds, but when we head outdoors, our attention tends to stay anchored in our heads. What we need is a practical focus strategy and more realistic expectations about how our minds respond to such a challenge.

When you catch yourself absorbed by some immediate aspect of your environment, try to yield to the observation fully for a few seconds.

Training your attention by listening closely to words as sounds can enrich your lifelong relationship to the language you rely on to navigate your life. It might even rekindle the wordless wonder that existed before you developed the ability to comprehend words.

Try pausing right before
and right after 
undertaking a new action

Brother David Steindl-Rast