Still feeling spacious after my self-retreat in the woods, as well as coming home to Meditation month at Naada, I was inspired to share a few lines from Larry Rosenberg’s book “Breath by Breath: The Liberating Practice of Insight Meditation.” He goes into greater detail than I offer on practicing Mindfulness, and if you find yourself intrigued to learn more, the book is definitely a great starting point.
1. When possible, do just one thing at a time.
People sometimes ask, How can I get anything done if I do only one thing at a time? Actually, we can be more effective. There is better attention and less tension when we do just one thing, and these factors more than balance the time that is saved by doing several things at once.
People also object that being strict about one-thing-at-a-time rule will ruin their social life. Large dinners ask us to eat, drink, talk and listen with the kind of panoramic attention which that situation calls for. Samadhi in action needs to be both steady and pliable, moving from a focus on one person, or on one bite of food, to a wider focus, like a wide-angle lens that encompasses a number of people – less precise in detail but fully alive to the situation.
2. Pay full attention to what you are doing.
Giving our whole body and mind over to a task, being undivided and intimate with our action, is what Chinese masters called giving life to life.
3. When the mind wanders from what you are doing, bring it back.
4. Repeat step number three several billion times.
5. Investigate your distractions.
If the mind keeps wandering to something over and over, it might be helpful to take a look at what keeps coming up. It might be trying to tell you about something in your life that you need to do, or stop doing. Life has a way of breaking into our awareness when our response to it isn’t adequate. When you switch to the distraction – assuming your situation is such that you can – make that your object of focus. Give some time to that, then return to your primary task.
