this is where you start

People are always asking me to recommend books on meditation. They say they're interested in learning more about it, but don't know where to start. Maybe this describes you. If so, my advice to you is this. You'll learn more about meditation by doing it than by reading about it. Learning how to meditate is like learning how to dance. You learn it only by doing it.

How do you meditate? The technique is quite simple, as the above video illustrates. The hard part is actually doing it, day after day after day. Maybe for you the idea of sitting quietly alone for five minutes is so foreign to your daily routine that it's too much to ask. It's an insurmountable hurdle. No problem. You can start with something even simpler if you need to. The important thing is that you start somewhere.

You can start by learning to sit still in a chair and be aware of your breath as you breathe it. Just sit there for a moment, breathe naturally, and notice your breath. Feel it go in. Feel it go out. Do this for one minute every day. You don't need to read about it. You don't need any equipment. You don't need to learn how to sit cross-legged on the floor. The only thing you need is a timer. You cannot omit the timer.

Once you've done this every day for two weeks, get back to me, and I will help you to refine your practice. I can even recommend some books. But books are only helpful if you are already engaged in some kind of daily (or near daily) practice, no matter how rudimentary it is.

In time, your one minute a day can blossom into a more formal practice, if you want to move in that direction, but in the beginning, the biggest hurdle is setting aside some small portion of your day -- it can be as little as one minute -- and just doing it.