This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Doing One Thing At A Time

Warm greetings. As we start this meditation, I would like to mention that one of the great supports for meditation, the practice of mindfulness, and Buddhist practice in general is the ability to give ourselves over to one thing when we're doing that thing. It is to really be involved in just one thing at a time.

Of course, the mind wanders off, but in a loving way, in an enjoyable way, whatever the task of the moment is in terms of being mindful, whatever it is you're applying your awareness to, do so with the idea that you'll give yourself over to it with a singleness of mind. Tell yourself, "Just this is where I'll be," as if this is the most important thing of the moment.

If the task is to be mindful of breathing, then practice being as fully as you can just with the breath. Set that as the intention, the purpose, and the orientation each time you begin again with your breathing. Do this not forcefully, not with a strain, and not disappointed that you wandered off, but with a kind of clear, relaxed clarity: "Yes, this is what I'm doing. I'm here for this experience."

If something else is going on that you bring your attention to—body sensations, thoughts, emotions, or sounds—maybe it's supportive for you to make the clear decision: "Yes, this is where I'll be. This will be fully with us now, as best I can." Even if that's just for a couple of seconds, give yourself over fully to this one activity, this one place where attention will rest or be aware. Just do one thing at a time.

Take an upright posture and perhaps gently close your eyes. Maybe gently gentle yourself on the inside, a gentling from the inside out. Having your attention to yourself here in meditation, have a care, a gentleness. How would you adjust yourself? How would you adjust mindfulness and attention if you were going to do it deliberately, gently, and singly?

To help settle into just doing one thing at a time, you want to bring your body into harmony with that. For that, it helps to relax. You might take a few long, slow, deep breaths. As you exhale, give yourself over gently and fully to relaxing the body, releasing the body.

Then, let your breathing return to normal. Even further, with normal breathing, spend a few moments on the exhale relaxing the body. It's easier to do one thing fully at a time when the body is relaxed. It's easier to sustain attention when tensions don't distract us or evoke distractions.

As you exhale, relax the face. As you exhale, relax the shoulders. As you exhale, relax the chest, the heart. And as you exhale, the belly.

Deliberately, calmly, give yourself over to just being with the breathing, so that you're only doing one thing at a time. For now, it's attending to the body breathing, without force or strain. Use the kind of careful and loving attention with which you would hold an injured cat, or perhaps sit and hold the hand of a distressed friend. You are fully there to accompany your friend, to be a reassuring presence. Give yourself over fully to just breathing, relaxing into breathing.

It is not so much focusing on the breathing from the control tower, as it is settling yourself into the breathing, as if the body gathers itself around the experience of breathing.

While it's nice to maintain that continuity of just doing one thing at a time, just the breathing, don't worry if it's not for very long. Be content to begin again and again. Have that "just breathing" attention, just being with breathing for however long it happens.

If something else occurs that it seems appropriate to attend to with mindfulness, do the same with that. Let go of breathing, and experiment. Play around with what it might be like to offer your full attention to this new thing, one thing at a time. Just this is where attention can be.

When you give yourself over to fully doing one thing at a time, attending with awareness to one thing at a time, don't worry how well you're doing it. Don't measure your success. Be content to just offer as full presence as is easily available. Maybe it is an embodied awareness, maybe a heartfelt awareness, maybe a clarity of awareness.

Notice when your thinking takes you away and how it splits your attention. Part of you begins to think, and maybe the other part is kind of being with your breathing. Notice that split. Then, when you're ready, see if you can bring all your energy, gather yourself together, with just the breathing, as if it's the most important thing, maybe even the only thing.

Perhaps your sense of full attention can have a peaceful quality to it. Perhaps the sense of full attention is also appreciated for its own sake. So it's not only attending to the breathing or something else; it's also appreciating the value of this fullness of attention. Undistracted and not split, not divided, peacefully being fully here with this.

Relaxing more deeply, take a few moments to give yourself over to a deep relaxation. Soften any place where there's holding or hardness. As if, when you relax, that which is relaxing is received by awareness.

Then, with this receptive awareness, turn your attention, your thoughts, outwards into the world. Turn them to the people that maybe you'll meet today or communicate with today, the people you might read about or learn about today. See if you can open your heart. You can receive them in your open awareness, as if the people in the world have a chance to rest also in your awareness and your attention.

Have some thoughts of goodwill for others. Maybe think first what a wonderful thing it would be if everyone was happy enough to be content, for the best in who they are to come forward, to allow the best of yourself to come forward.

Wishing others well:

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be free.