Five-minute practice · 5 minutes
How to practise Ubuntu in five minutes.
Ubuntu — a practice from Southern Africa is Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. A person is a person through other people. The Southern African answer to the Western question. Here is how to bring it into your life when you only have a coffee break to spare.
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Step 1
Sit, and start the timer for five minutes
Anywhere quiet enough. Phone face down. You do not need a cushion or a candle. Ubuntu did not come from a studio.
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Step 2
Recall the single sentence
Hold this in mind: Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. A person is a person through other people. The Southern African answer to the Western question. Do not analyse it. Let it stay there the way a stone stays at the bottom of a well.
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Step 3
Find one thing today that matches it
One moment. A small one. The work is not to engineer the moment; it is to notice when it arrives. When you do, the five minutes is over.
That is the entire practice. You do not need a longer version of Ubuntu than this — only a more regular one.
Other contexts for Ubuntu