Hi, I'm trying to figure out how to practice in daily life and wonder if you have any suggestions. I think that using the breath could perhaps be a good way to be mindful in daily life.

To be more specific my idea is to try to keep some awareness on the breath the whole time during the day. This enables to do other things. I'm not trying to ignore anything, I just use the breath to make sure I'm being aware of awareness and not wandering away in thoughts.

The benefits of this would be as I see it:
- be able to maintain this kind of mindfulness in daily life
- easy to become aware of mind wandering. no breath = mind wandered
- enables to do other things at the same time. I can for example write this text and still keep some awareness on the breath
- calming effect of breath awareness

Disadvantages:
- inefficient, because it requires divided attention. I assume it would be more efficient to just focus on a single task at a time
- less detail, also because of divided attention

So there are probably more advantages/disadvantages there but I just made a quick list. I think that Goenka recommended paying attention to the breath as a daily life practice, at least that's how I understood it. I have tried a number of different techniques for daily practice.

The problem that I see in some techniques is that I find it to be restricting in terms of what you are able to do. I mean for example if I take my bicycle to work I could choose to use this activity as a practice to be aware of physical sensations associated with that activity with as much clarity as possible (and maybe some attention on the road ). It would be a kind of formal practice I guess.

Of course it's important for me to do formal practice when the meditation is the primary focus of attention but I also value a lot the freedom to THINK and associate freely. Therefore I would choose to rather divide my attention on thoughts and breath at the same time to maintain mindfulness, OR I would try to be mindful of my thoughts. What do you think of that?

Webu Sayadaw "The Arahat of Burma" taught only anapana. He taught what you're talking about as well: A continues waking awareness of the breath. I've read 8 of his discourses, and they're worth reading. He only had one thing to say really though: pay attention to the breath!

As for thoughts: Well most of them are just rubbish aren't they? Try just paying attention to the breath, then adding background sounds if your mind wanders (Jill of these forums advised this to me and it works really well) --you could add anything really, but adding thoughts leaves much room to get lost in them.

I am only just seriously starting this practice, but yesterday on the train I started to really get into it. Mindfulness waxes and wanes depending on the circumstances but mostly it's not so hard to do and will likely pay dividends.

Good luck.

Thanks for the advice on Webu Sayadaw! I will check out his teachings.

I agree that a lot of the thoughts are not very useful but some of them are and I like the freedom to think. I do sometimes come up with very good ideas, or get intellectual insights by analyzing so for me that's valuable. Doesn't right view require some analyzing?

I would say most of my thoughts are automatic anyway so I can't control them. I could stop analyzing stuff intentionally but I'll save that for retreats. What do you mean adding background sounds? I also practice on the train.

It's not really about "stopping thoughts" or blocking all thinking. It's about remaining in the present moment rather than getting caught in the endless, useless tapeloops of the mind. Action replays of the conversation you had 5mins ago (over and over again), snatches of songs you heard on the radio, "planning" (the random, repetitive and redundant uncontrolled kind as opposed to the mindful, careful productive and intentional kind)

Most thoughts are just distractions. "Monkey mind" stuff. When you need to analyse something, go right ahead. See if you can do it without getting sidetracked into the random rubbish tapeloops --meditation and mindfulness in general makes that much easier.



Exactly. Good mindfulness will mean you get caught up in such automatic thinking less.



If you're able to follow the breath but are still getting caught up in thoughts, just split the attention between the breath and the background noise around you. Give the mind a little more to do. Don't pay any attention to the content of the noise, or try to analyse it / understand it - just pay attention to the raw data coming in at the ear.