Several friends know that I like meditation as a personal aid to living. Whether a person is dealing with pain, poverty or perplexity, meditation can often help. It has been handy for me to remember that ancients, without benefit of smartphones or super highways or electric heating pads, developed the tool of sitting with one's mind in quiet. I have suspected for years that the act of meditating can be helpful if done for 5 or 10 minutes. I have never devoted myself to a week of daylong meditating and I might be better off or a better human or a better husband if I had.
A question arises naturally when sitting quietly, as Karen Maezen Miller says, "looking at a wall", what am I supposed to do? How do I do this? That brings up the anxious, eager, young person who asks, "What happens next?" The good answer is "Nothing happens next. This is it."
Impetuous, squirrel-ly people like me are often advised to keep paying attention to something: a wall, one's breath in and out. Thus, books like "Breath by Breath" by Larry Rosenberg and "Joy on Demand" by Chade-Meng Tan. Rosenberg is a retired psychology professor and Tan is a software engineer with Google. He is the one who says he and his two year old daughter meditate for 2 minutes, about as long as a software engineer and a 2 year old can manage. He teaches a course on this subject to Google employees and says that a single, conscious breath will be sufficient to increase mindfulness, the awareness of what is occupying one's attention and thoughts.
This approach to knowing and liking one's own self is about the same as practiced by many Quakers and American Buddhists. A different approach is explained in the books by Eckhart Tolle. His question: What is my next thought? often helps me watch my mind while looking with curiosity to see what comes to mind next. Generally, looking with alertness sends thoughts scurrying away until a brave or extra sneaky one slips into my mind.
