No.9: How to Help Yourself Meditate Every Day

Any daily activity can be used as an opportunity for meditation. You can watch your thoughts as you go through your day, rest your attention momentarily on experiences like taste, smell, form, or sound, or simply rest for a few seconds on the marvelous experience of simply being aware of the experiences going on in your mind.

So do not create unnecessary problems for yourself. In twenty-four hours you can find a small corner. Forty minutes will do… so do the technique there. But the mind will give many excuses. The mind will say, “Where is the time? There is already too much work to be done. Where is the time?” Or the mind will say, “It is not possible now, so postpone

As fellow teacher Stephanie Nash is fond of saying, “A good meditation is one you did—the only bad meditation is one you didn’t do.” Take her wise advice to heart.

To be happy, even we non-monks need to make time for transcendent matters—such as beauty, creativity, service, faith—but too often these get pushed aside for more urgent demands, and life begins to feel empty and purposeless. Scheduling lectio divina is a way to make sure that the spiritual gets attention—whether a person decides to read holy books

At first, meditation requires a lot of effort. You have to think about what you’re doing, and you can only get in a meditative state while sitting still, perhaps with your eyes closed. But at some point, the skill becomes second nature. You can attend to the business of life and still be in a meditative state just like you can listen to the radio w