Truth in a simple raisin

"Researchers investigated whether mindfulness meditation, i.e. buddhist-style meditation, could be combined with cognitive therapy to help prevent depression in people with a history of depression.

for many people, that when they focus on moment-by-moment way of being, it’s almost a way of being instead of doing all the time, instead of being driven all the time, that they discover in that moment that they can feel their thoughts coming out, their negative thoughts, even positive thoughts, or body sensations they haven’t wanted like pain, and they can watch them come and go, instead of having to strive, to struggle, to worry, and so on. They begin to be able to see their thoughts like clouds going across the sky, and it’s an amazing revelation that if they wait patiently, just being gently curious about how they are in that ...
eventually the sun comes out...

simple practice meditation starting with eating meditation, where they get to eat just one raisin. But do it mindfully, do it slowly, just focus on that one thing...
...You start by actually looking at it, perhaps turning it over in your hand, and you take time to turn it over in your hand. Then maybe you smell it, maybe you even turn it over near your ear, see if it’s got a sound, but you pay all your attention to the raisin. If you find your mind wandering, you just gently bring your mind back to the raisin. Then eventually you take it to your lips, you put it in your mouth, noticing your hand knows pretty well how to reach your mouth without you telling it to do.

Your whole world is focused on the raisin. You take it into your mouth, you don’t chew, you just leave it there and see what your tongue feels like on the raisin, and then very mindfully, with great awareness, you just chew. And then you feel the intention to swallow coming up, and then you give in to it and swallow, and then you’re one raisin heavier.

...It’s a mind-focusing technique; it gives people a gateway into mindfulness meditation, which shows them that meditation isn’t just about breathing, or just about the full lotus posture, or about anything particularly weird, it’s about doing things and noticing that you’re doing them, doing things perhaps one at a time. And then having the choice about whether to continue to do it like that, or where else to put your mind."

-ABC online