Lack of Kavvanah

One who prays needs to intend in their heart the meaning of the words which are coming out of their mouth. They should think that it is as if the Divine Presence is before them, and remove all distracting thoughts from themselves, until their thoughts and intention are pure in their prayer. And one should think, if they had to compose one's words before a king of flesh and blood, how they would prepare the words and say them with great intention, without any stumbling, hence one should do this all the more so before the King of kings, the Holy One of Blessing, He who sees all thoughts. And so did the pious ones and the mystics, who secluded themselves and concentrated on their prayers until they achieved the falling away of their corporeality and the enhancement of the strength of their consciousness, until they came close to the level of prophecy. And if another thought comes to one in the midst of prayer, they should be silent until it is nullified. And one should think about things that humble the heart and direct it to one's Father in Heaven, and not think about things that make one light-headed. Rem"a: Before prayer, one should think about the exalted loftiness of Hashem and the lowliness of man, and remove all human pleasures from their heart. And it is forbidden for a person to kiss their small children in synagogue, in order to fix in one's heart that there is no love like the love of Hashem .

(2) One should not pray in a place where there is something that will ruin his concentration, and not at a time that will ruin his concentration. And nowadays we are not careful about all this, since we do not have such good concentration during prayers.

One who prays [the Amidah] needs to have the proper intent for all the blessings, but if he is not able to concentrate on all of them, he should at least concentrate on the blessing of the forefathers (the first blessing of the Amidah). If he didn't have the proper intent while saying the blessing of the forefathers, even if he has the right intent for the rest [of the blessings], he needs to return [to the beginning of the Amidah] and pray. RAMA: Nowadays we do not return to repeat the prayer when it is due to of a lack of concentration, because there's a high chance that even when he or she repeats the prayer, they will not have the right intent; if so, why should they repeat?

Rabbi Hanina would not pray on a day that he was angry.

Rabbi Eliezer said: after returning from a journey, don't pray for three days.

Rabbi Eliezer ben Yose the Galilean says: even someone upset shouldn't pray.

Shmuel would not pray in a house with beer, because of the distracting smell.

Rav Papa would not pray in a house with fish.

Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg wrote: nowadays,we don't follow any of these practices, because we don't have so much kavannah in our prayers anyway.

Rabbi Hiya Ruba said: I've never had kavvanah in my life except once, when I tried to do kavvanah, and then I wondered: who will stand in front of the king first, Arkabsa or the head of the Jüdische Gemeinde?

Shmuel said: I sometimes count birds.

Rabbi Bon son of Hiya said: I sometimes count rows of bricks.

Rabbi Matanya said: I am grateful to my head, because when it reaches the blessing of modim, it bows down by itself.

We are not able to concentrate these days - even though we are not able to have kavvanah, whatever can be done should be done. Therefore, it is improper to pray in a house that smells of new beer or mead, and especially not near a bad damp smell.

In the Sefer Hagan, it is written that in order to cancel out a distracting thought that comes during prayer, one should say three times pi pi pi, and then spit three times. The spitting shouldn't be total, just with a soft tongue between the lips at the moment of spitting - after this, the distracting thought will surely disappear. However, the Magen Avraham wrote that he thinks this should not be done during the Amidah prayer itself, because it is an interruption, and we don't even know if it is an effective cure.

Concentrate on the meaning of the words- and not on any mystical names of God or divine unifications, just simply pray to understand the words with a focused heart...

Rabbi Shimshon said that after he had learned all the mysteries of Kabbalah, he prayed like a one-day old baby.

All the descriptions of kavvanah in the Shulchan Aruch should be attained before the prayer, but in the prayer itself, one only concentrates on the meaning of the words.