Your Zen minute: We typically associate rebellion with outrageous or even violent behavior. But our culture is actually full of those qualities. To really differentiate yourself from the pack, try opening your heart. It’s a truly radical experience.

Every February, teacher Sharon Salzberg conducts a wonderful exercise called the Meditation Challenge, based on her book Real Happiness. The intent is to introduce folks to the practice of meditation by incorporating it into their daily lives. This month’s Mindful Minute columns will be based on excerpts from this challenge. Last week’s installment is here.

This week’s meditation is “portable” in that you can do it while walking! The main focus is on loving-kindness — that is, the ability to look at ourselves and others with kindness instead of reflexive criticism. It is about noticing and caring for others to whom we normally pay no attention.

Loving-kindness is the ability to truly focus our attention and really listen, even to those we’ve moved on from or don’t know. It is the ability to see the humanity in ourselves and strangers. It is practiced with a heartfelt wish freely given with no strings attached.

Let’s get started:

The next time you are out for a walk or cruising the aisles at the grocery store, center your attention on a positive phrase for yourself as you stroll along. It may be something like “May I be well” or “May I feel at peace.” Then, as someone comes into your attention, adjust the phrase to be “May you be well” or “May you feel at peace.” Return the phrase back to yourself.

You may judge someone. We like this about them or we don’t like that about them. But underneath all of that, we can include them in our field of friendliness and caring. Maybe we feel a bit envious of someone or afraid of them — but as we are walking, we can think, “May they be well, may they feel at peace. May I be well, may I feel at peace.” See if you can bring this meditation into one conversation you have today. Take a moment to notice that underneath all the speaking, listening, and thinking taking place, you can return to the silent repetition of these phrases for yourself and the people you are interacting with.

If you do these exercises, we would love to hear how they went at shorelines@northshorebank.com. Thanks for reading! —Pat Ingelse, AVP, PMP