The most caring thing you can do for yourself

Meditation then is caring attention to oneself. First of all, many of you, very understandably and rightly, are struggling with the time you give to meditation. Seems a big mountain to climb, 20 minutes. I can’t do 20 minutes, 7 minutes okay! That’s how we begin. But as you come to understand what the nature of the experience is, that takes time and practice, when you understand the nature of this experience of meditation, you realise that actually giving yourself those 20 minutes is the kindest, most  caring, and most attentive thing you can do for yourself. And the fruit of that is going to be the care and attention you give to other people and to your work. It doesn’t make you more self-centred; it makes you more selfless, more other-centred. That’s the paradox of meditation. You are not focusing on yourself, indulging yourself; It is not feeding the ego. Quite the reverse. It is liberating yourself from the fears and desires of the ego and the illusions of the ego. Liberating yourself to live in reality.