Way of a Man's Life

You may be busy, but yes, you can find 10 minutes a day.

I invite you to try our module of 10 minutes of meditation. This module on meditation can let you learn very quickly two skills effective in managing stress and anxiety and even prevent depression.

Many years ago my meditation teacher said "most of our suffering is caused by thinking too much." At that time, I do not fully understand the profound wisdom of those words. But think for a moment: when we feel stressed, it is usually because we are lost in our thoughts. Our thoughts are speeding and imagining a future filled with anxiety or reliving a past stressful conversation or event. In other words, we are lost in our stress filled thoughts.

Reflect for a moment. We spend most of our lives with our body in one place and our minds in another. We may be eating but we are thinking about what we have to do next. When was the last time you sipped a glass of water? Normally we drink in one gulp, eager to start the next task. The mind is like a deep lake. When the surface is quiet, it is like a perfect mirror. We can see the reflected world and ourselves fully in it. Respond appropriately to events. We can also see what is inside the lake. Thoughts are like stones thrown into the lake creating waves. If you throw stone after stone into the lake, the surface suddenly becomes very rough and cannot see anything reflected in it, or see what lies at the bottom.

When the surface of our mind is agitated, we do not see ourselves clearly. Our mind feels crowded and tight. We lose any sense of spaciousness and tranquility. We lose clarity. Many times we do not have the slightest idea of how we feel or why we feel the way we feel. We feel stressed and anxious, often without understanding why. What we need to do is find a way to reassure the surface of our minds. Be present and this is the way to do just that. Be present and this reassures the lake's surface. Meditation is simply the best environment to be present in the present. It is a skill that can be developed. With meditation and being present, it creates a sense of space and regain clarity about our emotions, our bodies and our thoughts.

So, how do we go about being present in the present? It is simply being in the here and now. It means our attention should be focused on the here and now. Until we focus on the present, we spend our time in the future and past, and we simply do not experience our lives. Think about it, we only get to experience a tiny fraction of our lives. You might think "because this does not seem much," but if you remember the moments of stress in your life, it has been when because you've been completely lost in your thoughts. Be present and this gets you out of this mode of thinking compulsively, which immediately cuts the process of accumulating stress. Create clarity. This clarity allows you to see what is happening. You might see an emotion clearly. Once you see the emotion, you can drop it, which in turn provides a sense of relief, but to let go lightly, you have to see it.