What’s the difference between a One-Minute Meditation and a One-Moment Meditation?

12th July 2012

When researching and writing my book, One-Moment Meditation, I thought long and hard about whether the first exercise should be a ten-minute meditation or a five-minute meditation or a one-minute meditation.  I thought even more about the difference between a minute and a moment. And there is indeed a big difference.

Get Started with a One-Minute Meditation

Ultimately, I decided that the first exercise should be an exercise that takes one minute. I call this the Basic Minute. I chose to one minute because “one” suggests simplicity and wholeness. I also chose one minute because a minute is short enough so that everybody has one. In other words, if I had started with a 10-minute meditation or 5-minute meditation or even a 2-minute meditation, some people might think they were too busy for it. Seriously, many people do not think they have five minutes to spare.  But everybody has time for a 1-minute meditation. So there are no excuses.

So if you want to get started now with the Basic Minute, a good place is my you tube video or this article.

But Don’t be Confused by the Minute Meditation

Unfortunately, because we start with a minute, some people refer to this whole meditation training technique as “One Minute Meditation.”  This is upsetting to me because the minute is really just the starting point. The minute is like a moment with handles on it. A minute meditation helps you carve out some time-in a nice formal way-and that’s a good place to get started.

From the Minute to the Moment

But ultimately One-Moment Meditation is not about the minute at all. It’s about the moment.

And, contrary to many people’s assumptions, this practice is not about adding together your “minute meditations” one by one until you can do a longer meditation. In fact, it goes the other way …

Once you’ve got the hang of the minute meditation, the book or online training course will show you how to reduce the length of your meditation, step by step, until it only takes a moment.

So, yes, if you are looking for one-minute meditations you can definitely find them on this site.  And my youtube video shows you how to get started.  Indeed, there are many benefits to doing just a minute of meditation — you can learn to experience quite a deep sense of peace in a short amount of time.

But the fun really starts when you get to the moment.

Because a moment is not a unit of time at all. It is something far more extraordinary and it gives you a far bigger release. A moment takes you out of time and into the timeless. So One-Moment Meditation is ultimately about being able to meditate in the blink of an eye, in an instant. One-Moment Meditation is about experiencing the infinite and eternal … right now … which takes no time at all.