Breathe in such a way that your inhalation and exhalation are the same duration; for example, count one, two, three, four in your mind while inhaling… - Rick Hanson

If you can break the link between feeling tones and craving — if you can be with the pleasant without chasing after it, with the unpleasant without resisting it, and with the neutral without ignoring it — then you have cut the chain of suffering, at least for a time.

Stay with the positive experience for five to ten seconds or longer. Open to the feelings in it and try to sense it in your body; let it fill your mind. Enjoy it. Gently encourage the experience to be more intense. Find something fresh or novel about it. Recognize how it’s personally relevant, how it could nourish or help you, or make a difference in your life.

Imagine that your mind is a garden. You can tend to it in three ways: observe it, pull weeds, and plant flowers. Observing it is fundamental, and sometimes that’s all you can do. Perhaps something terrible has happened and you can only ride out the storm. But being with the mind is not enough; we must work with it as well. The mind is grounded in the brain, which is a physical system that doesn’t change for the better on its own. Weeds don’t get pulled and flowers don’t get planted simply by watching the garden.