Meditation is stressing me out WAY more than it should.

darkprincess128

I mean, I've had problems meditating since day 1. It ends up becoming the Buddhist equivalent of schoolwork - something that I dread doing but know I have to (and often skip doing).

I can't manage to CALM MY MIND. I end up being so much more stressed out than I was before.

This is how it goes. I sit in the standard position and whatnot, and start trying to focus on my breathing. Since my mind keeps jumping around, I choose to do the "body sweeping" method instead and, focused after that, bring it back to my breath. And then I lose focus all over again.

I end up becoming so irritated that I give up after, like, 5-10 minutes. I think it's seriously hindering my abilities to do everything else related to Buddhism.

Help?

genkaku

You might try counting exhalations from one to ten and begin again ... in your mind. This is sometimes referred to as a beginner's practice. It is anything but that. Each time the mind strays, JUST go back to one. No criticism, no exasperation ... JUST go back to one. And if counting to ten proves impossible or nine or eight or seven or six ... just count one. Just one.

If meditation were a cake walk, everyone would do it. Meditation is not an invitation to swim in some pool of woozy bliss. It is a means of paying attention. And it takes patience. And it takes courage. And it takes determination. And it takes constancy.

If you think your frustrations are something unusual, you are giving yourself far too much credit. Everyone, in one way or another, goes through the same.

Exercise your courage and patience and doubt and keep up your practice. Good practice is good. Bad practice is good. Just practice.

Mountains

1. Stop trying so hard.

2. Wow, you're getting 5-10 minutes!? Great work!!

3. If you get 5 minutes today, shoot for 5 minutes & 30 seconds tomorrow. If that works, try for 6 minutes the next day. If you only get 5 minutes, that's OKAY!!

It's not a contest between you and your mind. Just let whatever happens happen. Don't look at it as success or failure. It just is. It will get better. Maybe not quickly, but it will get better.

Dakini

The breathing technique is key. In order to help calm the nervous system, and along with it, the mind, the breaths need to be very deep and very slow. You should be able to slow it down to 2-3 breaths/minute. Very, very slow in breath, pushing the breath down with the diaphragm (not filling the lungs, but imagine filling the belly with air), hold a couple of seconds, then very slowly exhale, watching in the mind's eye the breath slowly rising from the belly, up, up and out. Push the last bit of breath out, hold a couple of seconds, repeat. Is this how you've been doing it?

jll

It is called learning to meditate.
Its because 'I can't manage to CALM MY MIND. I end up being so much more stressed out than I was before.' that you need to learn to meditate.
You are learning, its hard.
when you know how to meditate, it wont be so hard.

remember the first time you learn to swim. stressful, wasnt it.
now i can swim across the pool, very relaxed.

DONT GIVE UP.

I mean, I've had problems meditating since day 1. It ends up becoming the Buddhist equivalent of schoolwork - something that I dread doing but know I have to (and often skip doing).

I can't manage to CALM MY MIND. I end up being so much more stressed out than I was before.

This is how it goes. I sit in the standard position and whatnot, and start trying to focus on my breathing. Since my mind keeps jumping around, I choose to do the "body sweeping" method instead and, focused after that, bring it back to my breath. And then I lose focus all over again.

I end up becoming so irritated that I give up after, like, 5-10 minutes. I think it's seriously hindering my abilities to do everything else related to Buddhism.

Help?

heyitsaaron

If your still new too it, know that this isnt uncommon. Let your mind drift to appease the thoughts but revert back to counting when you can. The more you struggle TRYING to meditate the more of a hassle it becomes.

abhishek_laser

It's mostly because your trying to control your meditation too much rather than letting the meditation happen. Be gentle with your meditation object and your mind as much as possible. If your feeling too much stress, better to get up and try some walking meditation, if that is also stressful then better to take rest and try later.
Mind is something which changes gradually, and cannot be violently changed with force,so be patient and keep up the practice and you will see gradual progress.
Remember meditation is letting go practice, you don't do meditation to get things, but do meditation to let go of things.

seeker242

You are going about it all wrong. The purpose is not to make your mind calm. The purpose is to bring your mind back to the breath, after it goes away. Not to keep it from going away. It WILL go away and there is nothing you can do to stop that. Trying to keep it from going away is the very thing that makes it go away to begin with and causes all this stress. The point is to bring it back after it goes away, not to keep it from going away. You can't keep it from going away, that is just what it does.

I like this analogy:

Meditation is very much like training a puppy. You put the puppy down and say, 'stay.' Does the puppy listen? No, it gets up and runs away. You sit the puppy back down again. 'Stay.' And the puppy runs away over and over again. Sometimes the puppy jumps up, runs over, and pees in the corner or makes some other mess. Our minds are much the same as the puppy, only they create even bigger messes. In training the mind, or the puppy, we have to start over and over again. You don't get upset that the puppy ran away, that is just what puppies do. It does not mean that it is a bad puppy, it's just a puppy that is not trained yet.

Gui

And the way I deal with this all too common situation is different from seeker242. My analogy is to see my mind as a kid who's had too much candy and is running around the house like a little maniac. Hey,Mind! Go outside and play. See how many times you can run around the house while I meditate.

pegembara

How about "meditating" off the cushion.

Make everything you do, every chore into a miniature meditation. By mindfulness of the breath in conjunction with what you are presently doing within any given moment. So you have a ‘brushing teeth/breath meditation,’ a ‘taking a little walk/breath meditation'. Anything, you do daily, can become a meditation simply by watching your breath closely and superimposing the movement of breath right on top of any old thing, at all.

There is no pressure. Just bring your attention to the breath anytime, anyplace.

taiyaki

i'll be honest with you.
i've always sucked at meditation and i've been doing it for a while.

actually i've always sucked at spirituality. then i realized something one day.

that is the point. we're supposed to fail miserably until we realize that there is nothing that WE CAN DO.

the game is surrender. just let everything be.

btw i still suck at meditation. but thats the point. thick and thin. keep that mindfulness.

footiam

Take a break then!

Linc

the game is surrender. just let everything be.

btw i still suck at meditation. but thats the point. thick and thin. keep that mindfulness.

Precisely.

Take a break then!

No no no, take a break from judging yourself, not meditating.

Jeffrey

Here's something you might try. Don't meditate. Instead just assume the lotus position on the floor and then let your mind be normal.

ownerof1000oddsocks

Maybe you could try running a cold shower and standing under the water for a few minutes, see if you're mind wanders around then.

darkprincess128

Thanks for all the help, guys!

I guess another thing that's frustrating me is this: Why exactly DO we meditate? What is it trying to accomplish? I think I'm always trying to accomplish something during meditation, which is why I get so frustrated.

seeker242

We are trying to train the puppy to sit and stay. However, to think that can happen overnight is where the frustration comes in.

Jeffrey

Meditation is non-doing. You are letting go of delusion. And you don't have to do anything. It just happens. You just have to stay true to the meditation method and take a flexible spacious mind.

ownerof1000oddsocks

We are trying to train the puppy to sit and stay.

So meditation is a form of pavlovian conditioning?, the neutral stimulus being the breath, or in the case of the dog, a dinner bell?

genkaku

Why meditate? Here's a small story.

Once upon a time a lot of years ago, I used to go over to a friend's house once a week. We would do zazen (seated meditation) for an hour or so and then go out to dinner -- usually Thai or Chinese.

One evening after sitting I asked my friend, Dave, "Did you ever notice that whether it's a good sitting or a shitty sitting, still, something good happens?" He looked at me and said, "Yeah." And since neither of us could think of anything sensible to add, we went out to dinner.

darkprincess128

Then how did the Buddha attain Enlightenment by sitting under the Bodhi tree and meditating, if one doesn't really ACCOMPLISH anything by meditating? (I'm NOT saying I'm expecting to become a Buddha, so please don't twist my words.)

Mountains

I guess another thing that's frustrating me is this: Why exactly DO we meditate? What is it trying to accomplish? I think I'm always trying to accomplish something during meditation, which is why I get so frustrated.

We're not trying to "accomplish" anything. Just the opposite. As soon as you attach an expectation to it, you're defeating the purpose of it. Just be. Just breathe.

Jeffrey

How do you know the meditating made him a buddha? Thats an assumption.

Mountains

Uh, isn't that one of the very most basic understandings of the story of the Buddha? Have we all gotten it wrong all these centuries??

Perhaps it wasn't the act of meditating that *made* him the Buddha, but it was during his meditation that he achieved enlightenment. I'm fairly sure I've read that in more than one place.

Jeffrey

There is also the story of the priest who asked his student what he was doing. The student was meditating. The student said I am meditating. The priest said why? The student said to become a buddha.

The master then picked up a tile from the floor and started polishing it very oddly. The student asked him what he was doing? The master said "I am polishing this tile to make it a buddha".

The moral is that ordinary samsaric understanding cannot quite formulate a question even clearly.

Sorry if this tangent is a little off topic. On topic you can get this heavy idea about meditation. My suggestion of sitting and not-meditating was designed to cut through that ideation. Its a method I have heard from a teacher.

Gui

I guess another thing that's frustrating me is this: Why exactly DO we meditate? What is it trying to accomplish? I think I'm always trying to accomplish something during meditation, which is why I get so frustrated.

We're not trying to "accomplish" anything. Just the opposite. As soon as you
attach an expectation to it, you're defeating the purpose of it. Just be. Just breathe.

A thousand indeeds. It seems to me that meditation is the action we take to practice what we learn from the Buddhist teachings. It's not to gain enlightenment or anything else but to allow all the illusions, foremost self, to fall away so reality happens. Meditation is just it. Meditation is how we actualize that there is no self to be enlightened. There is no self to be angry. There is no self to be happy. If you experienced enlightenment, you would not know it. So forget about enlightenment and just sit.

darkprincess128

A thousand indeeds. It seems to me that meditation is the action we take to practice what we learn from the Buddhist teachings. It's not to gain enlightenment or anything else but to allow all the illusions, foremost self, to fall away so reality happens. Meditation is just it. Meditation is how we actualize that there is no self to be enlightened. There is no self to be angry. There is no self to be happy. If you experienced enlightenment, you would not know it. So forget about enlightenment and just sit.

But how do illusions fall away during meditation? Am I meditating incorrectly?

Gui

A thousand indeeds. It seems to me that meditation is the action we take to practice what we learn from the Buddhist teachings. It's not to gain enlightenment or anything else but to allow all the illusions, foremost self, to fall away so reality happens. Meditation is just it. Meditation is how we actualize that there is no self to be enlightened. There is no self to be angry. There is no self to be happy. If you experienced enlightenment, you would not know it. So forget about enlightenment and just sit.

But how do illusions fall away during meditation? Am I meditating incorrectly?

I really don't know how to answer your first question and don't know that it's important to know how illusions fall away. Maybe others here can help you out with that. As far as meditating correctly, it's posture, breathing and not attaching to thoughts when they arise. There are websites and advise others here have presented on that which are much better than what I can say. It would be great if you could find a sangha nearby to give you guidance and support. The most important thing is to pick a time and place to sit and do it every day. Practice practice practice. And don't give up no matter how boring it is. It is, after all, just sitting. I've given up many times and keep coming back. It took me a while to realize that some magical elevated state of being wasn't going to happen and that's not what it's all about. I am not a teacher and am wary of giving advice. But I would have to say, if you are doing it, you are doing it correctly. Best wishes.

taiyaki

maybe instead of meditation you can do something you enjoy doing.

with full awareness of what is going on.

say if you like to watch porn. watch it. see how your body response. see your thoughts and feelings arise and fall. watch yourself judge yourself. just accept it all.

now apply this in meditation and even in all aspects of your life. whether you are on the toilet or eating mac and cheese. just notice your thoughts and feelings. notice any tightness in the body.

just noticing all these things arise and fall. this is enough.

Mountains

But how do illusions fall away during meditation? Am I meditating incorrectly?

Your questions imply that you have expectations from your meditation. Asking "how" is irrelevant. It's not important "how" it happens. You're not doing it incorrectly, because there is no incorrect way to do it (IMHO). Sit still, breathe, and just let it be. The rest will take care of itself (I promise!).