Cultivate awareness by paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally, using your senses (touch, sight, hearing, taste, smell) to connect with experience.
Practice directing your attention to your body breathing, feeling the movement of your belly or air at your nostrils, and riding the waves of your breath with full awareness, noticing when your mind wanders.
Understand that your true meditation practice is how you live your life moment by moment, being fully present in everyday actions like greeting family or hugging children, rather than multitasking or being distracted.
Understand that mindfulness inherently includes elements of kindness and self-compassion, as the words for mind and heart are often the same in Asian languages, making it a practice of ‘heartfulness’.
Understand that meditation is not about achieving a single, special state or permanent enlightenment; instead, recognize that every experience is inherently special.
Become aware that your mind is constantly thinking, which is a powerful realization that can free you from being a prisoner of your thoughts and emotional reactivity.
Practice suspending your habitual judgments and evaluations of everything and everyone, including not judging yourself for being judgmental, to experience things more directly.
Turn towards and befriend what you most want to avoid or cut out, as there is transformative and healing potential in accepting the actuality of things, even if you don’t like them.
Understand healing as ‘coming to terms with things as they are,’ recognizing that you are a self-healing organism, which differs from merely fixing problems in a medical sense.
Radically accept yourself, including your imperfections, as a starting point for growth, loving the unfolding of life as a big adventure.
Engage in self-inquiry by repeatedly asking ‘Who am I really? What am I really?’ without trying to think your way to an answer, but rather by opening and listening.
Structure your life around what is deepest, best, and most beautiful within yourself to avoid being lost in thought, stressed, and merely running through moments instead of inhabiting them.
Engage as an active participant in your own journey towards greater health and well-being, rather than passively relying solely on external medical interventions.
Consciously avoid falling into an ‘us versus them’ mentality, especially in social and political contexts, to prevent tribalism and recognize the underlying unity of all beings.
Learn to befriend those who are different from you and avoid the practice of ‘othering’ people, recognizing our shared humanity and genetic similarity.
Practice mindfulness to become aware of and wake up to the suffering of others, especially those who are marginalized or experience systemic injustices, to foster greater empathy.
Own the fact that you, like all humans, are capable of violence or harm under certain conditions, as this self-awareness is part of healing and changes how you conduct your life.
Approach complex problems by recognizing that you may not know the answers and that thinking alone might not resolve them, opening space for deeper intelligences and collective learning.
Show up, stand up, and act in alignment with your deepest values, engaging in dialogue with those who hold different perspectives to collectively shape emergent solutions.
Accept that ‘whatever arises’ in any given moment is the curriculum for that moment, rather than denying or resisting it, as this is fundamental to meditation practice and life.
When engaging in activities like exercise or sports, tune in to the experience rather than tuning out or distracting yourself, as this enhances performance and presence.
Strive to live deliberately, focusing on the essential facts of life and learning from them, to ensure that you fully experience life before you die, as advocated by Thoreau.
Engage in Hatha yoga, potentially alongside meditation, as it can be transformative for one’s life.