Monkey mind - Craving stimulation 24/7.
Woah93
Veteran
Hey all, it's been a while since I visited these forums and I'm sad to say my practice has sort of evaporated. I used to sit daily for 30 minutes or more but somehow the most I can manage now is twice a week. I have noticed that my mind is all over the place all the time. Wherever I go, there I am not.. Whatever I'm doing, I'm not actually doing it..
Watching TV helps to keep me entertained but I can not quite handle "emptiness" anymore. I tense up, thoughts start racing and in no time I'm desperate for something to do. On top of that for whatever reason meditation immediately brings up a negative reaction and I really have to push myself to do it, it's more like homework instead of something I choose to do...
How come? After 2 years or so I really can't tell what has caused this sudden shift in my overall mood but I can see my bad habits are starting to come back, I'm having trouble sleeping again, I smoke more cigarettes and I'm starting to loose motivation to do the things I normally like. Any advice on how to change the direction in which I'm heading? At this point my thoughts are winning the battle 
Comments
Sometimes, practice ends up being more about discipline than enjoyment. You have to do it, just because you have to do it, like eating or going to work. Just like things changed once, they will change again. You might try going back and meditating for less time rather than 30 minutes, or try changing your meditation and doing visualizations or walking meditation. Any time I've had a lapse of practice, I have to decrease the time i meditate. I once had a lapse of several months, and I had to go back to sitting for 5 minutes rather than 30. But I was able to build back up to 30 minutes much faster.
See this as the very nature of life, of dukkha. Don't see this as a battle where you ought to do something to secure victory. That will put additional strain upon your shoulders. Instead, acknowledge - calmly, rationally - that this is what life is about. You can't change circumstances, but you can change your attitude toward them.
I'm sad to say my practice has sort of evaporated.
I have noticed that my mind is all over the place all the time.
Any advice on how to change the direction in which I'm heading?
You've provided the advice.
Practice.
What do you expect? :wave:
Changing circumstances is what it's all about. Working with the present to affect the future outcome.
@Woah93, dude do I relate, at least it sounds a lot like the way my mind is, though it's gotten leaps better via practice.
For me, there was a lot of stuff bugging me in the background of my life. Unfinished things, lack of closure, procrastination, and just plain old not letting go. It made for this constant background noise, and if I didn't have something REALLY FUN to do or look forward to, I'd immediately feel 'bad', depressive or anxious. There was (and still is, to a lesser degree TG) an inner and outer restlessness. Like I'm always on the move, have to stay ahead, stay ahead, stay moving so that . . .
Well, so that what? The answer for me is so that I don't have to be alone with, or face myself. The 'self' parts I did not/do not like, or think other people like. The worries I'm afraid will catch up with me.
My answers before meditation and working the Buddha's prescription ranged from drinking a lot of alcohol (and becoming an alcoholic -- this did NOT work) to needing to have constant background noise like the TV, or an audiobook, because some sounds trigger anxiety (long story) and dread. I avoided having nothing to do like the plague, because it was then the impoverished, lonely and needy 'stuff' came forward. None of my strategies worked at all, though I admit I still employ strategies to avoid. At least I know I'm doing it, and that it really doesn't work. I'm more and more mindful of how my strategies arise, and it is definitely undermining my strategies, thank goodness.
Just as, if not more importantly, if my strategies to avoid the suffering are gone, then what in the hell is there BESIDES the suffering? That was my greatest dilemma (and still is to some degree). There has to be a good reason to renounce strategies, something in their place. What's needed is the conditions for NO STRATEGIES NECESSARY.
Part of that (and I am less than a year into serious meditation/study/working the path) is to tolerate and even welcome those lonely/needy background 'noises' to come forth. To sit with them, to have tea with them as the Buddha had tea with Mara, as JC shared meals with tax collectors and ladies of the night.
Those 'aspects' that keep/kept me on the run for so long really aren't THAT bad. It's more like I habitually react to their presence in such a way that I suffer MORE from my reactions than from the difficult feelings and emotions. I hope that makes sense.
This is all examples of how mindfulness can create insight, and how study puts wisdom in your head that at some point can be paired together with insight.
I go through periods of avoiding meditation, or wanting to avoid it. It's weird, it's like certain thoughts develop a slime coating after a while, and I'd like to know why. I end up reacting to the slime coating, which obviously wouldn't occur unless I'm proliferating some kind of wrong view to even such things as meditation, study, mindfulness, metta, and so forth. It's a continuous, constant process going on in my head (or wherever it's occurring lol!) that has fortunately, taken on a life of it's own.
Some questions or 'issues' like you are having are, in my opinion, hugely important, like, important in the great scheme of things. They might seem silly or irrelevant to pondering the Heart Sutra or some other scholarly effort. They might seem dumb as hell compared to how long you can do concentration meditation or what 'fruits' you get from all your work. But I don't think they are LESS important. Mainly because they are SO HUMAN, they are so common to the human experience, and isn't that where we ARE? My take on it, of course
Easy to say: practice.
But what is the intention and motivation of @Whoah93's practice? It sounds like his monkey mind has succeeded in taking him for a ride, and he's forgotten why he wanted to practice in the first place.
When I get like that - it's back to ground zero: the 4NT's. Do I want to end this suffering - if the answer is yes - then it's time to discipline the mind in coming back to the here and now and see what's happening. Try taking refuge and with a clear mind. Leave off the non-prescribed medications for a day or 2 I would also suggest.
I really have to push myself to do it, it's more like homework instead of something I choose to do...
I've experienced these practice fluctuations and I've found that you just have to buckle down and do your homework. You have to exercise discipline. You have to put fourth the effort. Sometimes the dharma path requires a little effort, sometimes it requires a lot of effort. Times like this, it requires a lot of effort. I've found that it's really just that simple.
Steering a boat through a river of old habits, takes a certain amount of force. If you don't have enough force on the rudder, you can't steer the boat.
No one ever said this whole thing is always supposed to be easy. Discipline is required.
Well every one of you kind of hit the nail on the head @Hamsaka especially your post describes me in almost every way.
It feels like I'm not actually living my life but rather surviving/escaping something. I just don't know what it is. My guess is it's emptiness.
The negative feelings which arise when I am planning to meditate tell me that, and the fact that I seem to feel the need to fill every moment with some activity.
I guess I also have kind of lost "trust" in meditation, it's hard for me to see the point anymore so I guess it's where the loss of motivation sets in.
What I do know is that when I first started doing it with no expectation or pressure I was feeling a lot more comfortable in my own skin, I didn't care what people thought of me, I was able to look at life with an objective lens free from struggling with emotions though at the same time those feelings of peace/happiness which occurred created these expectations in the first place
Practicing meditation without expectation is harder than it seems. I became disillusioned with it when I did not get the 'big hit' I was so expecting. Now I just get a big release of tension stress and worry.
You have to take things easy though in the beginning and it can be a mistake to think you have to 'go for it' and sometimes just doing 10 to 15 minutes regularly is enough to begin with, and even breaking that into 5 minute intervals might be more beneficial. My sitting sessions are noticeably lengthening, and I was so calm and relaxed today, I lost track of time, and 40 minutes later - went to get up and fell over. Literally, my left leg had gone completely to sleep and was just a lead weight from the knee down. Took 10 minutes to recover!
Meditation isn't really something one should practice to hope to get a particular result. It is something you maintain to free your mind of all the gobbeldygook, as my grandma would put it.
It's kind of like my son and his allergy meds. He has to take them every day, even if he feels fine. He knows it logically but in practice, he doesn't really get it. He doesn't understand why he has to take the medicine every. single. day. But, that is what keep his head from clogging up, and if he gets behind on his meds, then his head clogs up with snot and it takes days of getting his meds back on track to unclog. Same pretty much with meditation, except your mind is clogged, not your sinuses!
I don't often notice identifiable changes when I meditate every day. But I sure notice a difference in my money mind, my reactions, and so on in daily life when I am not meditating.
It may feel like that but you are living your life (or surviving or escaping)! Why guess at something that needs no guessing as it is right before you - breathe in, breathe out... yep - still living your life.
I think you're at a great point in practice - the basic introductions are to some extent behind you and now you have a chance to look again without the glitz and glamour of novelty. A friend said to me once, 'More skills just mean more work!'. In fairness, we were doing some backbreaking work and my point to lighten the mood was that at least we're learning a new skill - his point was more skills, more to do!
This may apply in some measure here - like the first days at school are like a day camp but after a while the task at hand becomes more and more apparent until it is grasped and achieved - this I believe is considered as 'growing up' or 'maturing' - in the same way, your practice will mature.
How to maintain consistency? For me, I just do it - I'm not sure how to explain it other than look at a situation and decide to make your body do a certain thing (get up, move there and sit down) - any other way I think abdicates responsibility and in a sense (for me) I don't see the merit in splitting practice by categories or not standing up to your word to yourself - thus the process of practice is easily all encompassing (and I suggest is always so even when not personally perceived as such) - from waking up to sleep (and dare I say it, even when asleep!).
Another way to think of it is that when you're not doing X, you're doing Y and therefore the motivation to DO is there... just an issue of X and Y.
To be sure, I'm not talking about self-motivating talks, rolling drums and big hoohas - it is subtle, a nod to inertia a nod to motivation and doing all the while no matter.
Emptiness has wreaked havoc! Maybe, the idea is not to empty the mind. Fill it with good thoughts and see what the monkey does with that!
Practice means showing up on the cushion whatever the day. If craving is the problem then a good diet is the solution. A diet of good thoughts, of good reading, of good material to feed those monkeys, like @footiam said above. Get the theory back right in place, and that will provide the framework for the practice. And vice-versa. You'll be lopsided without both. And have patience. Many times in your life you will find yourself in similar situations. You can never say you're actually finished here. Discipline, patience and megadoses of compassion towards yourself, that's what it takes. Turn everything off and don't be afraid to hear what silence is trying to teach you. You might hear your own voice providing you with the solution, telling you that it's not as bad as you think.
Our cravings to create as well as destroy, our cravings for sensual pleasures, are always overlooked as our own creation. Just breathe and create less.