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Continue observing the breath, moment by moment, as it flows onward.
    3.What you will notice next (probably within seconds) will be the mind wandering away from the breath into the world of thought. Perhaps you will be distracted by some worry of yours, perhaps apprehension around how you will “perform,” perhaps a feeling that you need to be doing something instead of just sitting here.
    4.Or, hearing certain sounds, you may start wondering what’s causing them or what they mean. You may begin to think about tonight’s dinner, yesterday’s football match, or how things are going at work. It doesn’t matter what the content of the thought is. The key is this: as soon as you become aware that the attention has wandered, bring it gently but firmly back to the breath, back to the moment. Do this without comment or judgment; just bring it back.
    5.As many times as the mind drifts off, simply notice this and restore your attention to the breath. Do this for as long as you like.
    As you practice mindfulness, you’ll probably be both able and motivated to do it for longer periods.
    Why mindfulness is helpful
    None of this may seem at first to have much to do with the major “issues” of your life—but it does. That’s because the practice of mindfulness is connected in a very deep way with our thoughts—or rather with the relationship we have with our thoughts. Being in the present moment means being attuned to whatever is going on: our breath, the sound of a clock ticking, a pain in the back. But what’s happening in the moment also includes our thoughts. Thoughts are events to which we can direct our attention. Like the sensations of our breath, thoughts arise in the mind and pass away, coming in and out of existence with no apparent effort on our part.
    We don’t often treat our thoughts accordingly. We treat them as though they were reality or, rather, pictures that infallibly describe reality. If we think something is So it is so. We form an abstract concept like “This traffic is unbearable,” or “My life is a mess,” and accept it as truth. If we think of someone as a good or a bad person, then that’s what they are. Conceptual thinking drives us—never more completely and powerfully than when we are anxious. We worry that something terrible is going to happen, and presto, the threat is real. We assume that our anxiety is informing us of all the things “out there” in the world that we need to be concerned about. Anxiety, more than almost any other human feeling, depends on the belief that our thoughts are accurate descriptions of reality.
    Recognizing that our thoughts are not reality
    We can view our thoughts in a different way, however. We can see a thought as just a thought—an event in the mind, with no necessary connection to what goes on in the world at all. Rather than getting caught up in the content of our thoughts, we can simply notice them in the moment—just as we did with our out breath. It’s possible, in short, to be mindful of our thoughts. This changes our entire relationship with them. When we see our thoughts as part of the flow of consciousness, when they’re simply phenomena passing through the mind rather than descriptions of reality, their power over us suddenly looks a lot smaller. Instead of reacting with “This is awful,” or “I’ve got to do something right away,” we can say “Ah yes, there’s that thought again.” Watching our thoughts come and go, we realize how ephemeral they are, how tenuously connected to anything important. We don’t have to “obey” them anymore.
    The same thing can be done with those feelings that you have. You can observe your feeling at the moment. You can say to yourself, “I notice that at this moment I am feeling sad.” You don’t have to judge it, you don’t have to control it, you don’t have to get rid of it right now. Instead, you can simply say: “At this very moment I notice sad feelings.”
    Your attention will be