Over the past 20 years, the Western world has discovered, not least thanks to the efforts of microbiologist and stress researcher Jon Kabat-Zinn for mindfulness, that you can practice mindfulness without having to join a religion.

 The word 'mindfulness' is a translation of the Sanskrit word smriti and the Pali word sati, both of which roughly cover 'remembering presence in everyday tasks'.

The foundation of the presence training that leads to mindfulness is 'body-anchored presence', or 'presence directed towards the body', kayagati-sati.

In this guide to gathering attention, Martin takes the body as his starting point and leads us through three main steps in classical mindfulness: Awareness of the body with an attitude of non-judgmental acceptance followed by attention to the breath, anapana-sati.

With this foundation, you are eventually instructed to let go of your thoughts – and when they come again, to discover distractions and let them go.