Charge Your Batteries

Close your eyes and focus on your breath. Take a couple of good, long, deep, in-and-out breaths. Notice where you feel the breathing in the body. Settle your attention right there and then try to stay there. One way of making it easier to stay here is to ask yourself if long breathing feels comfortable. If it doesn’t, you can change. You can try short breathing for a while. Fast, slow, heavy, light. Experiment to see what kind of breathing feels best for the body right now. When you find something that feels good, stick with it.

We’re practicing mindfulness of breathing. Sometimes we hear that mindfulness means just letting the mind wander, and be aware of where it’s going, but without passing judgment on it. But that teaching didn’t come from the Buddha. For him, mindfulness of breathing is supposed to lead to concentration, a state where the mind is gathered around one object, it stays there and gains some strength. It’s not just calm. It’s strongly focused, but with a range of awareness that fills the present moment, fills your body in the present moment. The focus is present, but fully present. This gives energy to the mind.

There’s going to be a lot of work today, so you need to charge your batteries. As you gather your thoughts around the breath, gather your awareness around the breath, it’s like a little generator that generates electricity, charges your batteries, so that you come out feeling strengthened—relaxed if you’ve been feeling tense, energized if you’ve been feeling tired, soothed if you’ve been feeling frazzled.

Find a way of breathing that feels right for the body right now and then stay with it as consistently as you can. And of course, when you leave the meditation, you don’t really have to leave. The breath is still there. Your awareness of the body is still there. Your thoughts may wander around, but why follow them? You’ve got something better right here, a source of strength inside. We have so many potentials inside, both in the body and in the mind, that we don’t take use of.

So here’s an opportunity to make use of the breath. Think of the breath throughout the body. It’s wide open but centered. That’s the quality of mind you want to develop, and it’s the quality of mind that gives you strength. You’re not running around after things that are going to disappoint you. You’ve got a center inside. You circle around that center, and that’s what generates inner strength.

So. That’s how you charge your batteries. And of course, you don’t have to just use the batteries as you go through the day. You can generate more power as you go through the day as well.

The mind tends to focus just a little bit on the present moment, and it tends to wander around as much as it likes, but you’re going to change those habits. Stay here, right here, right now. Whatever energy would be frazzled away by wandering around, you put it into the present moment again. You reinvest it, and this is how you charge your batteries so that you feel strong as you go through the day. No matter what the work is, you’ve got more than enough energy to deal with it. That’s the attitude you want to have, so you should develop the skill that enables you to maintain that attitude. And it’s right here.