Today I read about mindfulness meditation and then, after some much needed shoulder/neck yoga, I did a guided mindfulness meditation delivered by Thich Nhat Hahn.

Mindfulness uses (often) the breath as the object of meditation, a tool to focus the mind. So I breathed in and breathed out and started to fall asleep. But I kept catching myself before a major wobble. This is the style with which many non-denominational meditators are familiar, and with good reason: it’s relatively easy.

You focus on your breath and you think (as Hahn suggested) “this is my in breath” and then “this is my out breath.” At Colgate, the zen teachers taught us to think “one” and then “two,” and if we could stay focused through both, then we might move on to three and four. I never did because focus is hard! Here’s to getting better at it.