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or resolve in your own mind? If you’ve never looked at anything like meditation before, then my guess is probably never. Because usually, even if we’re just lying in bed, we still tend to be involved in the thought process. So for many people, the idea of doing absolutely nothing sounds at best boring and at worst positively frightening. In fact, we’re so busy doing stuff the whole time that we no longer have any reference point for what it means to be still, simply resting the mind. We’ve become addicted to ‘doing stuff’, even if it’s just thinking. So it’s not surprising that sitting still without distractions can feel a little alien at first.
    Exercise 1: not doing
    Try it now. Without moving from where you’re sitting, just close the book and place it in your lap. You don’t need to sit in any particular way, but just gently close your eyes and sit for a minute or two. It’s no problem if lots of thoughts pop up, you can let them come and go for now, but see what it feels like to sit still, not doing anything, for just a minute or two.
    How was it? Perhaps it felt very relaxing to do nothing. Or perhaps you felt the need to ‘do’ something, even if it was doing something within the exercise itself. Maybe you felt the urge to focus on something, to keep yourself occupied in some way. Don’t worry, it’s not a test, and there’ll be plenty to keep you occupied when we get on to the meditation in the next section. But I think there’s something beneficial, even at this early stage, in noticing the habit or desire to do something the whole time. If you didn’t experience the urge to do something, then you might like to try the exercise again, but this time for a few minutes longer.
    Now I’m not suggesting that there’s anything wrong with watching television, listening to music, having a drink, going shopping or hanging out with friends. On the contrary, these are all things to be enjoyed. It’s just useful to recognise that they facilitate a certain amount of temporary happiness, rather than a lasting sense of headspace. Have you ever finished work for the day feeling really strung out with a busy mind? Perhaps you decided to just ‘switch off’ for the evening and watch a bit of television to make yourself feel better. If the programme was really good and you were fully distracted, then it might have felt as though it gave you a break from all those thoughts. But if it was not very interesting, or had lots of adverts, it will probably have created just enough space for those thoughts to arise every now and then. Either way, when the programme finished, there’s a pretty good chance that all those thoughts and feelings will have flooded back again. Sure, they may not have come back with the same intensity, but they are likely to have been there in the background none the less.
    And this is how most people live their lives, moving from one distraction to the next. When they’re at work they’re too busy, too distracted, to be aware of how they really feel, so when they get home they’re suddenly confronted by lots of thoughts. If they manage to keep themselves occupied during the evening, then they may not even become aware of these thoughts until they go to bed at night. You know how it goes, you put your head on the pillow and it appears as though the mind suddenly goes into overdrive. Of course, the thoughts have been there all along, it’s just that without any distractions you become aware of them. Or it can be the other way around. Some people have such busy social lives or family lives that it’s not until they get to work that they become aware of just how frazzled they feel, of all the thoughts racing around in the mind.
    All these distractions affect our ability to concentrate, perform and live at anywhere near our optimum level. Needless to say, if the mind is always racing from one thought to the next, then our ability to focus will be seriously impaired.
    Exercise 2: the