Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Do you ever find it hard to meditate for hours at a time?
I am studying world religions and I am most interested in Buddhism, I need some opinions from you's guys.
0
Comments
Meditation is practice for living life.
I am worried because I do have ADHD and do not want to be disrespectful towards the religion
Yes, which is why folks who formally meditate for hours at a time, usually break up sitting meditation periods with walking forms of meditation.
It sounds more like the religion is being disrespectful towards you.
Ten or twenty minutes with a healthy instruction first would be my choice but I wish you well.
thank you for you input.
Are you going to be meditating in a group?
If so, 1.5 hrs of solid sitting meditation doesn't sound like a 'beginner's' group.
Most people new to sitting meditation start off with less than an hour-
even 30-35 minutes.
But if you can't last as long as they expect you to, I would just very quietly, very gracefully get up and make my way out of the room with as little disturbance as possible. Probably best to position yourself very close to an exit out of the room...
That said, you should know that not all Buddhists meditate (or at least not formally sit and meditate) and there's no reason you can't learn more about Buddhism and then commit to a meditation routine at some point down the road.
Meditation and mindfulness can be practiced while sitting, walking, standing, laying down, although most of the buddhist world is obsessed with sitting sitting sitting.
I do mixture of walking(which includes standing) and sitting, and i usually dont worry about time, whenever im done im done.
Walking meditation changed my life and my practice.
Good luck shoot for the moon. If you don't make it to 1.5 hours don't feel put off. These days I am on so many medications that I can usually only do 5-15 minutes sitting.
then I started learning about letting go, being kind to your body and mind, and a desire grew in me again, I told myself, I will sit and observe for as long as my body and mind can deal with it, at first that was just a few minutes, and it has grown slowly since then. time really means nothing with meditation, I've had a meditation where 3 minutes felt like 2 hours(in a good and in a bad way lol) and I've had the rare experience of an hour long meditation feeling like 5 minutes.
then at my first monastery retreat at a Mahayana monastery(I've always been theravadin) I met Venerable DhammaJiva from Sri Lanka who taught the importance of walking meditation, my practice skyrocketed from there... not that I'm very progressed lol, but even still any improvement is good improvement
I've been told of a few monks from the Buddha's time who attained enlightenment by just walking meditation, I can almost believe it, but I still try to keep meditation through various postures in my practice.
wait a minute . . . Oh you mean formal sitting . . . oh well . . .
When I get to 100 minutes, I change the nature of the sit. That is too long for a lay person IMHO but of course not all lay people are the same . . .
Build up, gradually, and set your own pace.
There are two philosophies of meditation. There are those who say sitting in lotus posture is magical and screaming pain in your legs and back is the price you pay for practicing meditation correctly. Others note that the only thing sitting for hours with teeth clenched while your nerves scream at you does is teach you to endure torture.
Try a happy middle ground. As noted above, ten good minutes is better than an hour of leg cramps.
I can also meditate for many hours while walking. It makes my walk enjoyable.
But to sit down to meditate, for me, one hour is maximum except when I do it in a group during a retreat. I don't have a choice, but the group gives me strenght to go on because I don't want to admit that I can't do it any more
No one said to do full lotus if it is painful. For some people it is the most stable posture. Most teachers (all?) say for you to take a comfortable position even if it means corpse position. I don't have leg cramps, but my legs do fall asleep after 20 minutes about. So I do 20 sitting and 10 walking (repeat). Sometimes your posts are a little extreme such as
lotus posture is magical
endure torture
is trying to impress you or has learned to sleep sitting up.
How long did the Buddha sit under the tree that night when he attained enlightenment? 5 minutes?
If you can't that's ok, you don't have to sit for that long a time. I'm also pretty sure our OP was asking about sitting as opposed to walking meditation.
We all have trouble sitting for long periods. Even if walking is thrown in. We eventually tire and distractions become numerous and then it's time to go put on some coffee and come back to the cushion later.
Personally, I find that sitting in a chair allows me the greatest stability. My legs dont fall asleep and there's the back bolster for support of the lumbar region. Even still I have to get up and stretch, or go to the bathroom, or something about once an hour.
I find impossible to meditate while taking a leak :-)
Also, we should keep in mind that even though we are sitting, doesn't mean we're actually meditating. The same goes for walking meditation, personally I find the practice useless for meditation. It's good to get circulation back into your legs, but for "meditation"? Forget it. I'll go to a 1-hour group practice at the Shambhala center and there will be 5 minutes of WM after about 35 minutes of sitting. I would prefer to stay seated. After walking the last 15 minutes of sitting is a waste.
@Chaz, these days I rarely do 20 sitting. Usually 5 minutes sitting and 5 walking. The reason is that I am on so much depressant medications. It's not sleepiness rather it is body discomfort. Walking meditation helps get life energy, juiciness back into my body so for that it is pretty good. I have some shamata in walking. Also because you have to keep your balance etc it can be a bridge to daily life.
Regarding sitting posture. I think with habit your posture, whatever that may be, generates shamata. I get upset over football games and I will sit in the half lotus or burmese sometimes watching the game and it makes it less unpleasurable if my team is losing.
Oh and alternating sitting and walking I have done 3 hours. That same day I did a total of 6 hours. I was inspired by Adyashanti, because he did hours and hours of meditation which lead to a breakthrough in his mind.
I worked myself up from 5 minutes to 40 minutes once a day in the evening. Sometimes the little bell goes off well before I start getting 'antsy'. This is miraculous. I am a life long ADHDer and my mind is a very bad little monkey. But I'm 48 and even the monkey is getting old tired. Even if the meditation is abiding with pain as it has been lately, it is still a blessed rest.
Gassho
I could meditate half the day if im in the woods by myself, if im in a retreat though i struggle to meditate for the fully alloted time.
As for the whole pain in meditation thing, all the good advice ive seen seems to talk about staying with the sensations.. To a point, and also depending on how much you can take while remaining mostly calm and able to be mindful. That threshold has changed for me over the years same as meditation length.
But I was talking about just sitting which I believe the OP was talking about.
Doesn't really matter why someone can't sit for extended periods. That's actually off-topic IMO. You can't sit for an extended period, I can't either and in my experience pretty much everyone can't at one time or another.
Endurance "on the cusion" comes with time, and, of course, practice. I know people who could literally sit for hours and not move a muscle - but then they started in their teens and have been practicing for 40 years since. They're VERY limber and that's the key. They would also admit to having had trouble sitting for extended periods.
Everyone has trouble sitting.
walking I can do up to an hour...depends on the weather, to be honest.
And then...all the little house chores in between I try to make
a mini-meditation session. For example, cleaning bathrooms
might be a good 20 mins...or sweeping the whole downstairs
might be 15 mins....so that adds up, too.
Moments at work lately were really getting to me...so in
that case, I would really work on some insight and looking
deeply meditation....things like that for me.
What temple/linage/ location starts newbies in full lotus for 1 1/2 hours?
Is there a gentler entry schedule that you are choosing to bypass?
Though it does make sense to build up gradually to longer sits.
Sitting for long or short periods are of little importance compared to your meditation in this moment.
Just meditatively practicing, in what ever moment you find yourself in, will put all ideas (or ideals) of long or short in a less ego bound perspective.
So, in that light what @how shares is spot on. If you're present, in the moment, then you'r meditation is where it should be. How long you're on the cushion is, as @how shares, of little importance relative to that. You can sit for a week, but if you're not present, you're not meditating - you're just sitting there.
and
No.
But I do not sadistically torture myself over it...
. . . hard to admit we are just a chattering monkey mind? . . . hard to sit with the experience of it?
Maybe so. Maybe you have heard of the benefits? A path beyond the incessant dukkha. It is there. Nobody is going to do it for you. Just in case you did not know . . .
:buck: