Liz Kulze writes about Mindfulness Meditation in The Atlantic:

In a practical sense, “sitting” is really all there is to the meditation aspect of mindfulness meditation. For anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour (or more) each day, whether alone or with a group, you sit in a quiet place with your eyes closed, focusing on your breath as it moves in and out. Your mind will inevitably wander, which is where the mindfulness aspect comes in. Instead of growing frustrated with your lack of focus or getting caught up in the web of your thoughts, you train yourself to observe the thought or emotion with acceptance and curiosity, and to calmly bring your focus back to the breath.

The process of achieving greater self-awareness, and therefore greater self-control, has three main phases: awareness of the mind, awareness of the body, and finally, a dissociation between thought and identity. In a culture that continually emphasizes the cultivation of the self, this may be the most profound lesson that mindfulness meditation has to offer. “According to the Justus Liebig-University and Harvard Medical School report, upon achieving a strong sense of internal awareness and the ability to ‘observe our mental processes with increasing clarity,’ we begin to see the self as something that is continually arising, rather than fixed.”