Lesson one: Sit.

My own secret garden- for now. Courtesy of a friend.

Find a place and a time to go and be with yourself.

It doesn’t have to be any where exotic, just a place where you can be alone and spend a little time with you.

Inside, outside, it doesn’t matter, just find that place.

Get rid of the mobile phone/cellular, and commit yourself to just three minutes.

Three minutes?

Yep, gotta start somewhere.

Get yourself in the mood if you need to, otherwise, lets just do this as you are.

Cross your legs if you can, sit up straight like you have seen in a buddha statue, tucking your chin in a little, and rest your eyes about 3-5 feet in front of you on the floor.

Place your hands on your knees, or face up on top of each other against your stomach, near your navel, and rest them there. Lets keep it simple for now.

Bring your mind and awareness down to a circle immediately around you. This intimate, close, familiar space is where we are going to focus ourselves on for the time being.

Get used to it.

Now- lets just follow your breath for now, for three minutes, following as you breathe in, and breathe out, naturally. Nothing more, nothing less, just the natural function of life, in its raw form.

Maybe as you start to watch and listen to your breath, you will notice things, senses, thoughts.

I am tense, its cold, I smell, whats for dinner, I can’t sit straight. Whatever.

As soon as you find these thoughts and sensations appear, let them dissolve on your breathe, out into space. And come back to that breath.

In and out, circle of awareness around you, just being you.

Just three minutes, remember?

Oops, off we go again. That meeting tomorrow, is my girlfriend still angry with me? Whats for dinner? Ok, this is boring, what I really need to do is…..

Come back to the breath, and dissolve those thoughts as you breathe out, then rest on the gentle in and out of your existence.

Forget trying to focus 100% on that breath for three minutes. It will never happen. If it does, then you probably shouldn’t be here- on earth that is.

The point is, in this simple and yet profoundly difficult exercise, is to give yourself the space and opportunity to notice all these thoughts, feelings and sensations. That go on every day, every minute of our lives, without ending. Constantly changing.

Thats the point. A three minute experience of you.

Try it, when you first wake up, before your agenda kicks in, and maybe just before you go to bed, as the agenda slips away.

Three minutes, just be with you, and listen.

When you get more confident, you can even find a place a lunch time to go and be with you as well. Sitting on a park bench will do, even if its just for a minute. Touch in with yourself as often as you can, when you can.

Three minutes, once or twice a day. Make it something attainable.

Lets start with that.