So you think you don't have time.

I think people often don't believe me when I tell them that 5 minutes of meditation a day will change their lives. But it's true. Jon Kabat-Zinn agrees as he explains in this passage from Wherever You Go There You Are:

For those who seek balance in their lives, a certain flexibility of approach is not only helpful, it is essential. It is important to know that meditation has little to do with clock time. Five minutes of formal practice can be as profound or more so than forty-five minutes. The sincerity of your effort matters far more than elapsed time, since we are really talking about stepping out of minutes and hours and into moments, which are truly dimensionless and therefore infinite. So, if you have some motivation to practice even a little, that is what is important. Mindfulness needs to be kindled and nurtured, protected from the winds of a busy life or a restless and tormented mind, just as a small flame needs to be sheltered from strong gusts of air.

If you can only manage five minutes, or even one minute of mindfulness at first, that is truly wonderful. It means you have already remembered the value of stopping, of shifting even momentarily from doing to being.

What happens when we meditate for just five minutes is that we have interrupted the flow of habitual tendency that typically controls our minds throughout the day. That is a major shift. This is why five minutes a day everyday is much better than a hour once a week.