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.
Daily meditation practice: not feeling like meditating?
dantepw
Veteran
Hello!
If you don't feel like meditating (but try to keep a daily meditation practice), should you still meditate and work out with the "unwanting" feeling or should you be kind towards yourself and not meditate?
0
Comments
Why did you start meditating @dantepw ?
Yes, meditate. Even if it's only a few minutes. As the saying goes "Meditate every day for 20 minutes. If you are too busy, meditate for 1 hour." Same goes for if you are too tired, too lazy, and so on
The more you resist it, the more you probably need it. We need to stretch out of our comfort zones to bring balance to ourselves. Our nature is to stay at rest in the place we are most comfortable. But that is not necessarily the healthy thing. If nothing else, meditation is quite good for your brain and overall health.
I don't mind my meditation. I don't always want to do yoga or go for a walk, though. But I always tell myself I am going to try, and if it's not going well, I can stop. 99.9% of the time, I finish what I started. So, just try. If you manage 2 minutes, it's better than no minutes. No need to necessarily work with something even. Just sit, observe your breath, relax. If I have a problem getting going, I practice a few minutes of pranayama, it calms the nervous system. Either alternate nostril breathing, or inhale 5 seconds, pause 5 seconds, exhale 7 seconds. Repeat.
Is it kind in the long run to stop meditating? Think more long term than relieving momentary anxiety or boredom or whatever makes you not want to meditate. If you wait to meditate until a certain feeling comes or for a feeling to go away you might waste a lot of time and as we know it's even possible you will lose your human life all the while waiting for things to be different so we can start meditating.
I would say to fit your meditation to your feeling. You can do body scans if anxiety is making meditation feel bad. Or do shorter sessions if your consciousness is very dull. But at least 'touch in' for 5 minutes every day. I used to do that when the coffee was brewing every day. And then for me after every day 5 minutes at coffee that has grown to 30 minutes for 3 years and since November I have been doing an hour a day!
Yeah I'd say the more you find yourself distracted by stuff in your life, the more you need to meditate. I recently went through a period where it seemed almost impossible, but I did practice mindfulness: Just listening and being calmly aware of stuff around you - noises especially are easy for me, anyway. Dog barking, birds twittering, neighbors making whatever noises they're making, traffic, anything, the refrigerator running, heh. It's almost as good, but meditation is like -- let's call it Vitamin M.
In some ways meditation (training the mind) is like physical training. When I used to run a lot I found a few days off made me return more motivated.
I suspect the OP is young and hasn't been on this journey long? Daily meditation kinda becomes what you have to do eventually.....
You should be kind to yourself in your meditational feeling.
Basically you sit and listen attentively to why you don't want to be meditating . . . as people have said . . .
In other words you should find every trick in the book to feel good in your practice. So if that is metta bhavna do that. If led meditation do that. Do a quarter meditation. Do prostrations until you feel like meditating. Do walking meditation. Do you want to know how to do excuses meditation?
. . . and now a message from my sponsor . . . no he is not a muppet . . .
May the force be with you
@dantepw
One of the great things about keeping to a schedule of meditation is that sets up the conditions to meditatively learn much more about yourself than just whats within that particular mindset that is amenable to meditating.
What should meditation feel like?
The only thing worse than meditating is not meditating.
I generally have Sundays off because it's a day of rest.
But seriously, a good approach is to do a little bit each day to keep the connection, even 5 minutes is better than nothing.
Now I really wish I could go back especially because I was much happier, mindful and truthful. I will give a try for at least a couple minutes everyday, i really enjoyed the tips abobe.
That's the thing, right there...
It has that effect on 'you'.
How could you not want to do it?
If I didn't have my meditation practice, I'd be in a far sorrier state than I am now - guaranteed....
The thing is this @dantepw,
We meditate as a practice because life has ups and downs, just like relationships.
Equanimity is no fun for the young, still addicted to the life drama.
However . . . the strange thing is the drama intensifies and hurts less with practice. You know that.
The rest is choice, capacity, maturity and volition.
For me, my morning meditation has become like brushing my teeth or showering. If I skip either of these things, I will of course be fine, but the say is so much better for myself and others if I do!
Here is a great video on how to practice mindfulness while doing other activities, such walking, checking email, etc.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=IOWRAyB7fmM
I don't feel like meditating today, nor yesterday or the day before. Just don't feel like it over the last few days . . . Nah not for me, no thank you. Can't be bothered. Too much trouble to sit on my ass.
So I am gonna meditate instead.
As a feeling/arising it will pass . . . 
Those little bits are manageable and make it easy to start!
Also what helps me is know there is no goal to meditation. If your not calm and peaceful it is ok :)your still doing great just by being aware.
I often don't want to sit and meditate. But I know it's the ego talking. This is incentive.
Start small and build up. Metta chris
@federica -- I love you like a sister, but as a brother I would like to observe that the above is unadulterated horseshit. It is not worthy of your good common sense. No one can know how things might have turned out if they hadn't turned out like this.
And it's not as if I hadn't likewise dithered in the shallows and praised Buddhist practice volubly ... how else would I be brazen enough to call you out? But that doesn't mean it's not a goof, and a stinky one at that. As I see it, Buddhism may begin in a whirl of imagination and hope, but with practice ... well, ain't it just practice? A practice whose edges cannot be found, let alone praised or blamed?
I trust you will know that these words are not intended as some uppity high-seat bitch-slap. It's just brothers and sisters discussing stuff over a cup of tea.
Well, I compare my Mind-State now, to a time before I practised Buddhism, and man, I was an impatient, irritable, mouthy bitch then, but now...
Oh.... hang on.....
No, seriously, I was far more of a worrier, much more pessimistic, fixated on desired results to the point that I would spend entire nights in sleepless resentment if things didn't go MY way.
I was imbued with the "why me?!" attitude...
I think I certainly have worked to Modify my thought patterns and Views, and to be honest, anyone who says that after a while they don't notice some beneficial change in themselves, is frankly either not being truthful - or isn't actually doing anything.
I think you should be kind towards yourself and meditate.
You've got to do at least 10 years before you get time off for good behaviour.
@federica -- All the hard work any of us do is certainly no cakewalk. And lord knows that hard work, Buddhist or otherwise, has some effect.
But as an idle wondering, I wonder if all the hard work deserves the credit for salutary change or whether the milk poured over the breakfast cereal was not equally the cause of which this present is the effect. I have a hunch that this qualifies as an "imponderable" not worthy of the exercise.
But I don't know and since not knowing seems to be my lot, I try to steer clear of speculating.
Well then, don't speculate. Because as I see it, from my position, I KNOW.
You - are just 'noodling'.
OK.
Hi!
> @seeker242 said:
Really nice to see your point of view, friends. Thanks for that!
That's one great line, Seeker!
I'm gonna remember it, ha.
Dwell contemplating impermanence in all formations, perceiving suffering in what is impermanent, perceiving non-self in what is suffering, perceiving abandonment, perceiving fading away, perceiving cessation.
http://dharmafarer.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/23.16-Dighavu-S-s55.3-piya.pdf