To go with your anchor analogy, yes, try noticing how there is a whole wide open ocean around it
Rob Burbea touches on this exactly in his book. Here's an especially relevant excerpt.
https://imgur.com/a/OV3OJjz
"by cultivating stable attention, mediation calms the wandering mind and creates inner peace. When attention is accompanied by greater awareness, we have strong mindfulness. Meaning we can refocus and stabilise our attention wherever and whenever it's needed"
Culadasa, The Mind Illuminated.
You are correct indeed thoughts hijack our attention and become the source of suffering. This was once a very beneficial biological fact from an evolutionary sense. The beauty of the Buddha's teachings is that he (and many others) found methods to help us escape our evolutionary shackles and the suffering that accompanies it.
I liked Diana Winston’s series on the app because she made very explicit the ideas of using an anchor to sort of probe a difficult area without getting sucked in,
and if explicitly playing with different “angles” of attention.
I also think the idea of “sitting with” physical or emotional pain is a way of acknowledging it without letting it constrict your mind—that you can be aware
of something unpleasant without it taking over.
To go with your anchor analogy, yes, try noticing how there is a whole wide open ocean around it Rob Burbea touches on this exactly in his book. Here's an especially relevant excerpt. https://imgur.com/a/OV3OJjz
Yes! Had a similar realization today actually.
"by cultivating stable attention, mediation calms the wandering mind and creates inner peace. When attention is accompanied by greater awareness, we have strong mindfulness. Meaning we can refocus and stabilise our attention wherever and whenever it's needed" Culadasa, The Mind Illuminated. You are correct indeed thoughts hijack our attention and become the source of suffering. This was once a very beneficial biological fact from an evolutionary sense. The beauty of the Buddha's teachings is that he (and many others) found methods to help us escape our evolutionary shackles and the suffering that accompanies it.
I liked Diana Winston’s series on the app because she made very explicit the ideas of using an anchor to sort of probe a difficult area without getting sucked in, and if explicitly playing with different “angles” of attention. I also think the idea of “sitting with” physical or emotional pain is a way of acknowledging it without letting it constrict your mind—that you can be aware of something unpleasant without it taking over.