Make the breath an attractive place to be. That way, when you wander off, the idea of coming back is attractive — you *want* to come back. If you wander off again, you want to come back again.

"The mind has spent so much time thinking about random things and about other things that are not quite so random but still scatter you about, but now you’re going to devote its thinking and all of its processes to getting it to settle down. A large part of that strategy lies in making the breath an attractive place to be. That way, when you wander off, the idea of coming back is attractive — you want to come back. If you wander off again, you want to come back again.

Each time you come back, reward yourself with a breath that feels especially gratifying. Think of the breath as being all around you, so that you’re not just in one side of the body looking at the breath in another part of the body. You’ve got the breath all around you, surrounding you, bathing you.

As for any other thoughts, any other responsibilities you may have right now, you don’t have to think about them. You’ll come back to them some other time, but not right now. You want to honor your original intention, which is to get the mind still with the breath so that it can see itself clearly."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Because the Mind Is Purposeful" (Meditations12)

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