You have to give it your full attention. When everything is really balanced and fully engaged like this, it helps to prevent the mind from wandering off.

"Ajaan Lee talks about the bases of the breath, which correspond pretty closely to what the Indians call chakras. These are the sensitive energy centers in the body. You can find one that feels congenial to you, one where you’ll notice if you’re putting undue pressure on the breath, either with the in-breath, or with the out-. Try to maintain a sense of ease and just-rightness there at that spot, all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out-. To do this, you’ve got to relax tension in different parts of your body. This is why this is called a center of breath energy, because it’s connected with a lot of other energy channels, where energy flows in the different parts of the body. If you can keep this spot open and relaxed, you’ll find that its influence automatically radiates out through different parts of the body.

Then you think of the breath spreading from there to other parts as well. If you find that there are some areas where the energy doesn’t spread, you go to those spots, focus there, and see if you can loosen things up, like the bathman kneading the soap dough. Again, keep in mind that, as you breathe in, you’re not going to allow any tension to build up in those spots. And as you breathe out, you’re not going to squeeze things out or hold on to any tension. Just keep things open and relaxed all the way in, all the way out.

When you’ve made a survey of the body and everything seems okay, go back to your center spot and then think of spreading that sense of ease again. This requires balance. On the one hand, you’ve got your one point that you’re focused on, but at the same time you also have a larger frame of reference: the body as a whole, from the top of the head down to the tips of the toes. Sometimes you’ll find that you’re more in the one-pointed mode, and other times you’re more in the full-body mode. But ideally, you want to have both going, and that requires a lot of attention.

This is why we say you have to give it your full attention. When everything is really balanced and fully engaged like this, it helps to prevent the mind from wandering off. It helps to prevent you from going on automatic pilot where the breath just comes in and goes out, and you leave it there so that you can go pay attention to something else. You want to give this your full attention."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Fully Here"

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