Yes. There's a difference between focused awareness and broad awareness. When we're doing the formal meditation and trying to really be aware, it's more focused. Then we try to apply that focus to our normal everyday life activities. It's like learning the drills on a piano. In a quiet place, we learn the drills. We learn, we learn, we learn, and then it becomes more natural. Then we can start to play music. Suppose we want to be a pianist in a busy restaurant. We wouldn't go to the busy restaurant first to learn about playing music. We go to a quiet place and practice.
This is like the formal meditation -- then we try to apply that mindfulness to our everyday life activities. For example, in the walking meditation instructions, when I did the lifting, the moving, and the placing, lifting, moving, placing, this is formal meditation. However, then we try to apply that mindfulness to our normal life. Suppose I have to go somewhere quickly; I'll just become aware of the touch of my foot on the ground as I walk.
Oftentimes, in our busy lay life, back in Australia, we had to go places, we had to go sell things somewhere. Often I would just take a walk in a mall -- that's where we used to sell our products -- and I would just feel the touch of the feet on the ground, the touch of the feet on the ground, and it grounded me and centered me, so that when I was more centered, I was able to see how I was thinking and the results of that. We're being aware of the body as it's moving, but in a broader way.
Then when we have more time -- say, when we're sitting down -- we try and be aware of sitting down instead of our thoughts going off to the future, to what we have to do next week. We try to be aware of sitting. Then there's moments when we're present. We're existing in the present, therefore we have to try to be there and understand ourselves in the present. So there is this broad awareness and this focused awareness. The broad awareness you would apply to your running so you can be really there, rather than jogging and getting all upset about what you have to do at the office.