Meditators: teachers always say 'come back to the moment.' But the moment has so many components: sounds, smells, thoughts, pressures in the body, the breath, heartbeat, etc. What do you focus on?

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Any of it. Or all of it. Pick something and get to it. The ‘present moment’ means anything that is not in the past. You can feel a distinction in the ‘flavor’ of your thoughts when you are sensory focused vs. reflection focused. When you’re sensory focused, you can’t be thinking about random stuff that happened to you the last day or two.

Some terminology might be helpful. Buddhists refer to the ‘object’, this means any content of mind. In order to prevent thought regressing back to normal thoughts and worries, you put an object in mind and concentrate on that. A common object picked is a candle flame.

It helps, particularly at the beginning, to not expect the object to be excessively static. Let the flame flicker, feel the heat, watch the wax drip down the sides. Notice the holder. What color is the candle? What color is the flame? Immerse yourself in the object.

The object can be the breath. This is more rhythmic, you can control the breath by breathing in more deeply and slowly. I like to hold my breath after I let it out for a few moments. Any time you find your thoughts drifting off, bring them back to your breath.