counting 1-10

[Anonymous]

I’m in month one. I have no problem doing the 1-10 count for 20 minutes without losing count, but I am simultaneously having many, many thoughts. Is the goal to get all of the other thoughts to end?

[Anonymous]

As I understand, the goal, at least at this stage, is to merge the mind and the body. COunting could be one tool to help with this. Judge yourself if thinking about some other stuff will help you or not.

[Anonymous]

Hi Pat,

The goal at this stage is not to get all the other thoughts to end. It’s to try to strengthen the ability to pay attention to something.

If you can pay attention to your breath and these other thoughts are like a radio in the background i.e. you can hear them but they don’t distract you from what you are doing. Then the other thoughts are fine. The point isn’t weather there are or are not thoughts. At this stage, you are trying to learn how not to get distracted by thoughts.

Also, be careful not to count in a hypnotic or rythmic fashion. If you count in a rythmic way, you can much more easily keep track of the numbers without getting distracted. But it won’t help you develop a stronger presence. You want to delibrately count each breath, one at a time. When I first started doing this exercise, I had a hard time getting to four breaths without getting distracted

Hope this helps,
Janak

[Author]

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