We are going to focus on four essential practices. They are actually not separated practices. As you just read at the beginning of Chapter 6, learning to manage our attention is the only “method” in meditation. 

 All different techniques are, in fact, different chosen objects for practitioners to focus their attention on. The key to train attention is to keep your attention on one object of meditation for an extended period. Or course, paying attention to specific objects gives you insights into the objects; this gives you certain benefits or advantages on your test journey, as we will discover along the way. 

 Now let’s see what the four practices are: 

Fundamental practice 1: Watching your breath 

Fundamental practice 2: Noticing your thoughts and emotions

Fundamental practice 3: Moving out of a stream of thoughts and emotions when you need to

Fundamental practice 4: Acknowledging the goodness of life

-       "Great! But how do these practices support my test?" You may wonder. 

 Breathing practice gathers your energy back and builds up concentration quickly. Once your energy is focused, you can easily see your current state of mind, constructed by certain thoughts and emotions; you then can choose to act out of a thought if it’s relevant or let it go. When you let go of negative thoughts, the disturbance created by the thought also goes. That is the essential skill to handle distractions.

(for example, when recognizing fearful thoughts about what may happen to your test, you let them go and just focus on answering the question at hand; by doing so, you can have a better-than-expected result!) 

But that’s not enough. In order to experience life in a positive way, you need to cultivate positive energy by acknowledging the goodness of life at this very moment. Your experience of life will be more pleasant and meaningful. This “habit” will greatly support your entire period of test preparation and your life later! 

So instead of treating the four practices individually, you’d better think of them as one practice with four parts. 

----------Breathing in, feeling fresh----------Breathing out, feeling at ease--------