Stable attention is the ability to intentionally direct and sustain the focus of attention, as well as to control the scope of attention.

Attention not only interprets objects based on self-interest, it leads us to identify with external objects (this is “my” car), or mental states (“I am” angry, happy, etc.).

Attention analyzes our experience, and peripheral awareness provides the context. When one or the other doesn’t do its job, or when there isn’t enough interaction between the two, then we respond to situations less effectively. We may overreact, make poor decisions, or misinterpret what’s going on.

The rule is never more than ten, never less than five.

Most importantly, remind yourself that meditation time is your time, which you have set aside for yourself—a time free from the demands of the world. Considering how much meditation will improve your relationships with others, you shouldn’t regard it as selfish. This “personal time” will ultimately benefit everyone you come in contact with.

willpower is not very effective for anything in meditation,

Peripheral awareness filters out unimportant information and “captures” the objects that deserve closer scrutiny by attention. This is why specific objects can seem to pop out of peripheral awareness to become the objects of attention. Attention will also browse the objects in peripheral awareness, searching for something relevant or important, or

The condition in which the mind “stands back” to observe its own state and activities is called metacognitive introspective awareness.13 Attention, on the other hand, can’t observe activities of the mind because its movements and abstracting of information from awareness are activities of the mind. In other words, we can’t attend to attention.

All this is possible because true happiness comes from within, which means we can always find joy, in both good times and bad. Although pain and pleasure are an inevitable part of human life, suffering and happiness are entirely optional. The choice is ours. A fully Awake, fully conscious human being has the love, compassion, and energy to make cha