Last week I said a few words about my own meditation practice, how I started with an approach that I call one-minute meditation, and how I had no idea where it might lead. I just knew that I liked listening to what regulator meditators said about their own experiences. So I thought I would try it out. One-minute meditation is just what it sounds like. It’s great for starters. It’s hardly much of a commitment. I mean, it’s one minute. You won’t be late for the sake of a single minute. Continue reading
Tag Archives: meditation
Words of Thich Nhat Hanh
I have had a daily meditation practice for just over six years now. I started with one-minute meditation, which I have taught to many people over the years. I like to think of it as a good way to start. One minute is not very much time, and I have generally found that just about everyone is willing to dedicate a single minute to meditating. It’s really just a minute: you breathe in for 5 seconds, and then breathe out for 5 seconds. That’s your warmup; now do it 5 more times. That’s it. One minute. You’re done.
When I first started meditating, I did not really know the reason or the purpose. I just did it to see what would happen. I only knew that I liked listening to what people who meditated regularly said about their experience. So I thought I’d try it for myself. I don’t know what I expected. Next time I’ll talk more about how those first years went. This week I want to talk about the words of a man named Thich Nhat Hanh. Continue reading
Mindfulness
Today’s post is about encouraging yourself to be mindful, to be kind to you, and to help yourself remain centered, especially in the vortex of activity that constitutes our days and weeks.
Mindfulness, my personal word-of-the-decade, is the polar opposite of multi-tasking, which is not at all what it sounds like. Continue reading
Be Here Now
“Be here now” is what Thich Nhat Hanh says. I think about that sentence a lot. It grounds me in the present and keeps me here, no matter what I’m doing, No matter when and where I’m doing it. Not there, not then, but here and now. For a long time I thought of “Be Here Now” as “be HERE now.” Sometimes “be here NOW.” But last week, for the first time, I heard myself think “BE here now.” Notice: Thich Nhat Hanh said BE here now, not DO here now. Continue reading
A Big Fan of Small Change
Maybe you know, or maybe you don’t, but I like to imagine that there’s a big sign on my office wall that says “Perfection is the enemy of progress.” It isn’t actually there, but I like to pretend it is, and I quote it all the time. It’s not important to hit the track like you’re training for the Olympics. It’s not reasonable to think you should be able to lose 20 lbs. by next month. And it’s definitely not in the cards for you to become the next meditation guru. But it’s not necessary either. Continue reading
#Mindful Being
A few words today encouraging you to be mindful, to be kind to yourself, to help yourself to remain centered, especially in the spinning vortex of ceaseless activity that will characterize the coming weeks of nonstop celebration. Continue reading