I am interested in the benefits of practicing keeping my attention fixed for a short period. My attention can be under my control, at least for a while. So, I can watch a squirrel in the backyard, even while a car goes by. I don't have to put my attention on the passing vehicle. Still, the squirrel is not all that important to me and if the phone rings, my attention will jump over to it. I can lock myself onto the squirrel and ignore the phone, but eventually I may decide to put my attention on something else.
The paragraph above has 99 words in it and I didn't mention "meditation" once. Practicing keeping my attention on a given anchor, such as the squirrel, is a way of increasing my awareness of what it is that I am focusing my attention on. The 99 words also did not include the word "mindfulness", being aware of what I am actually paying attention to. If I practice attending to the squirrel, I tend to notice when I start thinking about something else.
Many societies, religious organizations and others have practiced focusing their attention on an anchor, noticing when the attention has jumped to something else, and returning the attention to the chosen anchor until the meditation practice ends. Anyone can do such practice. Traditionally, something other than a squirrel has been chosen as an anchor for the attention. A common choice is one's own breathing. That anchor can be used with the eyes closed, giving them a chance to rest but also increasing the risk of dozing off.
After a couple of weeks of daily practice, maybe for 10 minutes a day, one becomes more sensitive to the focus of attention. One becomes more mindful of the mind and its activity. I can notice more easily that I spend quite a few minutes thinking about my mother-in-law. Once I notice that, I can change the subject. I can think about my father-in-law, for instance.
Because I am a human being, one who knows he is thinking, I might decide to think about my thinking about my mother-in-law. Why do I allow her to be the center of so much attention? Am I jealous of my wife's affection for her? What about my own mother? What about my parenting?
I can recall that I have been thinking of my inlaws quite a bit and decide that I want to think about Mozart for a while, or dying an early death, or making another million, or writing a screenplay.
