15:26

MIDL 15min 10 / 20: Observing Attention Move

by Stephen Procter

Rated
4.8
Type
guided
Activity
Meditation
Suitable for
Everyone
Plays
6.7k

New to MIDL? 15 Minutes of Mindfulness is an introductory series to the MIDL 52 Mindfulness Meditation Trainings. 10/20 is the MIDL Mindfulness training in the the skill of observing when attention moves away from the meditation object to train the First MIDL Pillar of Flexible Attention. Practice daily for one week before moving to the next exercise Have a question? Insight Timer Group: MIDL Mindfulness in Daily Life with Stephen Procter. Private question? Send me a message.

MidlMindfulnessMeditationAttentionBody AwarenessTouchRelaxationFocused AttentionTouch AwarenessSound AwarenessBreathingBreathing AwarenessPracticesSounds

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Stephen Proctor.

In this guided meditation we will be setting up conditions to observe our attention move.

If you just start out by taking a meditation posture,

Either seated or lying down,

Lightly hold one hand in the other and rest them in your mouth.

Close your eyes over lightly,

Relax your jaw and place your tongue behind your two top teeth.

Now gently take a deep breath in and as you're breathing out just allow Start off by being aware of the feeling of your body sitting or lying down.

Start to notice that throughout your body there's an experience of heaviness.

Hold this experience of heaviness in mind continuously and notice every time your attention wanders away from it.

Now allow your awareness to sink down to the place where your body touches the chair or the floor.

Hold your attention on that experience of touch.

Keep that feeling of touching in mind continuously and notice every time your attention wanders away from it.

As your attention wanders to a thought,

To a sound,

To a sensation in your body,

Just acknowledge it and bring your attention back into your body,

Into the feeling of touch.

Now gently widen your awareness throughout the whole of your body.

Just feeling the whole of your body just sitting or lying down.

At these points start to be aware of the touch of your hands,

The feeling,

The experience of your hands touching each other.

Holding your awareness,

The experience of the pressure where your hands join,

Where they contact each other.

Hold the touch of your hands very gently in mind,

Relax and see if you can notice where your attention moves to.

See if you can observe it move.

As your attention wandered,

If so acknowledge where it's moved to and then gently bring your attention back to the touch of your hands.

Only keep the hands very gently in mind.

Don't hang on to the hands mentally.

Allow your attention to wander so you can observe it.

Gently keeping the touch in mind,

Relax and observe what happens.

As your attention wandered,

Maybe it's wandered to a thought,

To a fantasy,

To a sound.

Acknowledge where it's wandered,

Bring your awareness back into your body,

The touch of your hands,

Relax and see if you can observe your attention move.

As your attention wandered,

Where is it wandered to?

Now immerse your awareness back into your body,

Feeling the whole of your body just sitting or lying down.

Being aware of the heaviness and the touch.

Relax your chest and your belly,

Allow your breathing to move freely.

Not focusing on closely in on the breath,

Be aware of the full movement of the breath within your body.

Now use your breathing and the awareness of your body as an anchor point.

From which to observe your attention move.

Gently be aware of your breathing of your body,

Relax and see what happens.

As your attention moved,

Where is it moved to?

Acknowledge it and bring your awareness back into your body.

Awareness of the sitting,

Laying down,

Of the movement of the breath within your body.

Now relax and see what happens.

Have you wandered off to a thought,

To a sound?

Acknowledge it.

Now ground your awareness within your body.

Heaviness,

Touch,

Start to be aware of any sounds around you,

Allow the sounds to come to you.

Now when you are ready,

You can gently open your eyes,

Be aware of seeing,

Be aware of being in the room.

Take care of yourself.

Goodbye.

Meet your Teacher

Stephen ProcterMylestom NSW 2454, Australia

4.8 (403)

Recent Reviews

Zhana

December 7, 2024

This one was quite interesting. I never thought about relaxing my focus, but it felt good when I started to get the hang of it. I'll definitely be taking my time with this one.

Paula

February 5, 2024

Love it. Hopefully I'll reach full mindfulness by the end of this course. 🙏 Day 1. Day 2. Day 3. Day 4. Day 5. Day 6. Day 7.

Joaquin

November 25, 2023

Thanks, Stephen! I was wondering how many times per day would you recommend to meditate and for how long each time for someone who’s been meditating for some years? Thanks! 😊

Chuck

April 16, 2023

I am so grateful for this series of lessons. My practice is deepening.

Marit

May 18, 2022

Thank you 💚

Kumail

January 17, 2022

It’s been a bit since i practiced vipassana and this practice reminded me how my monkey brain needs to calm down! Thank you!

Maxime

November 2, 2021

Merci Stephen. Your meditations ground me into presence.

Mark

March 22, 2019

Stephen’s sharing of his beautiful understanding is humbling and uplifting. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Faith

March 9, 2019

Interesting that when I give my attention permission to wander, it is actually more likely to stay.

Claudia

August 3, 2018

Thank you Stephen for these 15 min meditation sessions. They work well with my busy schedule.

joss

May 26, 2018

Thank You, Namaste

Paul

April 29, 2018

Observing When Attention .......just what I needed; looking forward to exploring this talk

Cheetahmama

April 3, 2018

What I think of when I think about meditating

Karen

March 11, 2018

This is such a great meditation series! Thank you, Steven.

Matthew

January 27, 2018

Thank you for this simple, rich, masterful guidance. Your series are second to none!😊🙏🏻💖

Sadie

November 14, 2017

Today, this guided meditation brought me to a place of total stillness, from which I could clearly observe the comings and goings of my attention as it flitted to the future, the past, and then rested peacefully on the present moment. Thank you.

JPS

August 5, 2017

I've been doing the series and no audio problems on my end.

Holandský

July 4, 2017

Very important step in meditation. Funny is that if we're 'allowed' to wander (to observe the wandering), it somehow never seems to happen :-) yet if we have to focus on the body, my mind tend to wander more quickly.

Noah

June 14, 2017

Refreshing approach: watching attention wander.

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© 2026 Stephen Procter. All rights reserved. All copyright in this work remains with the original creator. No part of this material may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

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