{"id":1295,"date":"2017-08-15T20:10:52","date_gmt":"2017-08-16T03:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/?p=1295"},"modified":"2017-08-08T23:56:31","modified_gmt":"2017-08-09T06:56:31","slug":"one-breath-meditation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/2017\/08\/15\/one-breath-meditation\/","title":{"rendered":"One-Breath Meditation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Gary Snyder &#8217;51<\/strong> begins his essay, <a href=\"https:\/\/tricycle.org\/magazine\/just-one-breath\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Just One Breath: The Practice of Poetry and Meditation<\/strong><\/a> (Tricycle, Fall 1991) with a straightforward teaching:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In this world of onrushing events the act of meditation \u2014 even just a \u201cone-breath\u201d meditation \u2014 straightening the back, clearing the mind for a moment \u2014 is a refreshing island in the stream.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What is this &#8220;meditation&#8221; that even one moment is good? Snyder says,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230; it is a simple and plain activity. Attention: deliberate stillness and silence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Even<em> one<\/em> moment is a &#8220;refreshing island.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This is so important to remember. So often we set ourselves up for disappointment by saying, &#8220;Hey, this meditation stuff is really good! I like it so much that I <em>promise to meditate<\/em> 30 minutes every morning (or every Tuesday at lunch).&#8221; That isn&#8217;t so bad, unless, as is so often the case, reality fails to keep pace with aspiration. At that point our vow, &#8220;I promise&#8230;&#8221;,\u00a0becomes one more thing to beat ourselves up with, and we may just give up altogether.<\/p>\n<p>Aspirations are fine, but there is nothing gained in\u00a0punishing yourself.<\/p>\n<p>Snyder doesn&#8217;t talk about\u00a0promises, or in keeping track of the number of moments you devote to meditation. <em>Every\u00a0moment<\/em> is available to you, regardless of the moments that have slipped by, or the moments yet to come. Right\u00a0now &#8211; straighten your back, breathe, experience. Ah!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gary Snyder &#8217;51 begins his essay, Just One Breath: The Practice of Poetry and Meditation (Tricycle, Fall 1991) with a straightforward teaching: In this world of onrushing events the act of meditation \u2014 even just a \u201cone-breath\u201d meditation \u2014 straightening the back, clearing the mind for a moment \u2014 is a refreshing island in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37,47],"class_list":["post-1295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-poetry","tag-reset"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1295"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1302,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295\/revisions\/1302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}