Finding a comfortable position.
Allowing the breath to be whatever it is.
Let your attention sink down from the mind into the lower belly.
One of the reasons meditation is typically done sitting upright rather than lying down,
For example,
Is because you're wanting to find a fairly narrow balance between attention and ease.
So as you focus on your breath the first couple minutes,
See if you can find a sense of ease.
So that you're using just as much attention,
Just as much energy,
Just as much effort as you need and no more.
This is really one of the art forms of meditation,
This neither efforting too much nor too little.
In martial arts this is what's known as the realm of effortless power.
Because you find that too much efforting actually erodes power.
Too little of course,
Just doesn't bring enough to the table.
So this is why it's important when a thought arises that you neither become the thought,
Get lost in the thought.
That would be too little effort.
That you neither become the thought,
Get lost in the thought,
That would be too little attention.
Letting yourself be carried away on it such that you forget what you're doing,
Whether that's attention to the breath or whatever the focus is,
Your presence in the room.
That would be too little effort.
But the more subtle one to get is that dragging your attention back to the breath is too much attention.
Gives the thought too much power.
And is actually the mind working against the mind.
Which ultimately will get you nowhere.
So the soonest moment you realize your attention is wandered,
All there is to do is relax right there.
Just sort of melts into it.
And the attention on the breath is not something you necessarily have to focus on.
You just sort of melt your way back to it.
The returning happens on a particular moment.
When you let go.
So the more subtle one to get is that dragging your attention back to the breath is too much attention.
And is actually the mind working against the mind.
Another reason it's important to melt into the attentiveness when you realize you've gotten lost in a thought.
Is so that you welcome that moment with acceptance and even a kind of joy.
Very often people will be too hard on themselves.
In that moment where you realize you were lost in a thought,
You have a choice.
You can celebrate the fact that you just woke up or you can beat yourself up for having been lost.
And in so doing you associate waking up with pain.
And that will not serve you.
So every time you wake up it's an opportunity to just relax right there and at the very least sort of smile to yourself.
Because that's the place you always come back to eventually.
After this interview I
