Quote Originally Posted by VagalTone View Post
Yes, but that´s probably not how you practice sitting meditation, right ? And if you are always changing the object of attention is somewhat artificial.
Depends on the specific meditation. Mindfulness of breath is singularly focused. Doing body scan and attending bodily sensations is scanning the body and attending the various sensations present. Metta (Loving-Kindness) is a totally different meditation as is Compassion, and resting in awareness is a vast expansion of awareness, not focusing on or attending any object except awareness. And awareness does have a rather large capacity to be aware of lots of stuff simultaneously, if properly trained and familiarized with that territory and state of being.

By the way, I find with walking mindfulness or any other type of daily activity mindfulness I can attend multiple objects simultaneously without shifting attention and with little effort. This wasn't always the case but over time and with practice awareness expands in capacity. I read the Dream Yoga lessons and the concept is the same.

Quote Originally Posted by VagalTone View Post
I am most of all interested how we cain sustain,without effort, without artificial manipulation of attention or willpower, a natural state of relaxed attention ?

I am tired of being the «one» who meditates and chooses « how i will i meditate now ? sound or breath? » and places a beam of focus here and there. However, distraction doeesn´t help, it's just ordinary living. Can we jump into effortless mindfulness right now ? How ?
Monks with 30K hours of meditation do this without even thinking about it (resting in awareness), and they all pretty much start with profuse amounts of singular focus concentration meditation like mindfulness of breath. It's just like being able to clean & jerk several hundred pounds. Got to start with years and years of dull and repetitive basic lifts. I am not aware of any other way.

My own experience is it's becoming easier for me to maintain that state during formal sitting. Sometimes for an entire 30 minute sitting. The longer I maintain that state in a sitting, the longer it lingers after the sitting. I also find if I simply contemplate on it for a brief moment during the day when things aren't too hectic I can come close to a similar state for short periods of time without actually focusing or attending. I suspect with more formal practice of the basics this will be easier and easier. Don't know if it will ever be totally second-nature for me, but it can't hurt to keep following that path. Just have to be diligent and it has to be a part of daily life.