A good way to work on mindfulness, the awareness of what you are allowing your attention and thoughts to do, is to stay on top. In describing the approach of meditation, Harari puts it this way:
But how do you get the mind to accept things as they are, without craving? To accept sadness as sadness, joy as joy, pain as pain? Gautama developed a set of meditation techniques that train the mind to experience reality as it is, without craving. These practices train the mind to focus all its attention on the question, 'What am I experiencing now?' rather than on 'What would I rather be experiencing?
Harari, Yuval Noah (2015-02-10). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (p. 226). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Having practiced this for about 8 or 10 minutes a day for about 20 years, I do see that I tend to see things as they are rather than the way I might want them to be.
I write "the way I might want them to be" because I have many examples of how what I thought I wanted turned out to be more ordinary, or more boring, or more scary, or more expensive than I thought it would. I also have a collection of examples of how what I thought I definitely didn't want but got anyway turned out to be more wonderful, more refreshing, more fun, more valuable than I ever thought it could.
I really have learned, most of the time, to see how things turn out. I don't have very deep knowledge and my predictions of what is positive and what is negative often turn out quite the opposite of what I actually find. So, when I watch my mind in meditation, I rather enjoy the unpredictable sequence of this and that. It is fun to just stay up on top, watching the coming and going of both interesting and silly thoughts, of upright citizens of my mind and the down-and-outers. I just can't tell who is a prince and who is a pathetic wastrel. I just watch the show.
--
