Exercise and meditation are remarkably similar. Both require focused attention, dedication, education, and practice. Both are tremendously beneficial to physical and mental health. And both require a level of faith.

With practice, your ability to maintain focus will naturally improve. However, there are three techniques, counting, labeling and intention setting, that can be added to the above meditation that will provide you with immediate improvements.

Mindfulness is the awareness that arises from purposefully paying non-judgmental attention to the present moment.

This brief definition hides a significant amount of wisdom, so it is worth unpacking. Mindfulness is the awareness, not the act of meditation. We practice meditation to become mindful, first on the meditation mat, and then increasingly in our everyday lives. We do this by paying nonjudgmental awareness to the present moment. This sounds simple enough, but it can be deceptively complex. It involves observing the contents of consciousness, both internal and external, for what they are, as they are; without overlaying additional judgements, labels, thoughts, concepts, wishes, desires, or anything else.