Mindfulness for Lazy Meditators

Meditation starts with taking a centered, upright, comfortable posture.

When you sit down to meditate, something shocking happens: Your mind is full of thoughts. It’s full of all kinds of crap.

Have you noticed that? Then you’re a good meditator.

At first, when you see all these thoughts you think, “This is terrible. My meditation is not working.”

But when you see your thoughts, it’s actually the first moment your meditation is working.

Whether you’re sitting on a cushion or a chair, or even lying down, your spine is straight, but relaxed. Sometimes we think, “Oh, this is a very weird posture. I’m not used to it.”

But do you really want to go back to what you’re used to? If so, then why are you meditating?

Before meditation, your mind was just as busy. Your mind had just as many thoughts. It was just as full of random crap.

But you were too distracted to notice.

Before we heard the meditation instructions on posture and breathing and so on, those concepts weren’t in our mind.

We might think these concepts are getting in the way of our meditation. But as my teacher in India told me, you’re not acquiring more thoughts. You’re actually starting to see the subtlety of your thoughts.

Your thoughts are getting more focused, more clear, and more subtle.

So you’re sitting here in meditation, and you see how many thoughts you have.

So, what do you do?

As a lazy meditator, I’ll say you do very little. Just 3 things.

You sit, you breathe, and you notice.

Sitting upright with awareness, your mind is in the body. You follow the breath in a relaxed way. That’s what we call meditation.

Noticing your thoughts, you let them come and go without chasing after them. That’s what we call mindfulness.

So, for a lazy meditator,
mindfulness is just 3 things:

• Sit
• Breathe
• Notice

Enjoy!

This article is based on a teaching given by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche at Nalanda West in Seattle, Washington, on April 5, 2026.