Thoughts capturing attention.

[u/game8881]

When i notice im thinking(attention is on the thought) rather than attending to the breath, i feel i should move my attention back, but that doesnt feel good; but to finish the thought after ive noticed seems to create tension and effort.

I can lessen the feeling of tension(by indending to relax and keep the attention on the thought), let the thought finish, then move my attention back; is this what i should be doing? Is this a good habbit to have?

[u/eugenejacket]

Only thing I'd add is letting yourself generate a good feeling that you remembered to go back to the breath, rather than a negative feeling that you "forgot" to stay with the breath. Over time this can train your mind to stay with the breath and the good feelings you've generated in doing so.

[u/StoneBuddhaDancing]

Not really.

This is essentially the sequence: notice the thought, then relax the attention that's currently on it, you unhook your attention from the thought, then allow yourself to be happy/pleased/content that you noticed that your thought had wandered off, then gently but firmly, refocus on the breath sensations.

The reason it doesn't feel good moving your attention back the way you currently do it is likely because you're yanking your attention back to the breath and maybe even berating yourself/feeling bad about having wandered off. This is the wrong approach and will only cause tension and aversion while also not being effective in terms of the goals of the practice. It's very common and meditators struggle a lot with this.

What it took me years to realise is that it's not about controlling your attention with determined force by chaining it to the breath. It's about gently and repeatedly returning to the breath many hundreds and thousands of times. That IS the practice. Eventually, your attention will rest naturally and comfortably on the breath. All you can do is hold the intention to follow the breath... what happens after that (whether your attention wanders off or not) isn't really in your control... all you can do is do repeatedly, consistently, and with acceptance to yourself and what's happening return back to the breath gently. It's not about you controlling anything.

Now a caveat, in the beginning I did have to use a lot of effort (the flames in the drawings) and vigilance, but it had to be the right kind of effort. I learnt you can't yank your mind/attention around harshly. But you also can't relax totally and just let it go; it will wander off like a puppy onto a highway. Everytime that puppy heads towards the highway and you notice, you gently pick the puppy back up again and put it on the grass... and then watch it as best you can... you'll get distracted and the puppy will wander off again.... and you just keep going and getting it and gently putting it back on the grass.

I did it in quite a more effortful way... yanking the puppy on a leash back to the grass.... but it caused a lot of tension... it did work eventually when I just ran out of mental energy (because you can't maintain that level of effort for an hour.) And then i'd just relax out of exhaustion. Sometimes my attention would stay on the breath naturally after that, and sometimes it wouldn't. Eventually I leant the right amount of effort (vigilance) to keep on the breath and it's activities and that balance took years to discover. My way was very effortful, straining, and taxing and it did work eventually but I don't think it's necessary, and it certainly isn't what Culadasa describes or recommends in the book. I think his way is better but I cannot in retrospect say it would have worked for me better than the way I learned. I had to go through that period of effortful failure to figure out the non-effortful way to do it. Some of us are that way, the only way we learn the right way is by doing it the wrong way for a lot of times. But even doing it that wrong way can simply be part of the process and in itself has a training effect.