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Impatient In Meditation
So, I love meditating, but I can never seem to want to meditate for a long period of time, even as long as 5 minutes, I just get to fidgety and want to go do something else. Are there any tips or ways I can stop this?
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Focus as fully as possible upon the in- and out-breaths during your daily activities, for every waking moment that you can, even up to the last moment before you fall asleep. This won't be so easy to begin with, but it will become second nature and lead to a tranquil mind out of which insight can arise. This is an effective Samatha(-Vipassana) meditation technique that can be greatly beneficial; why meditate for a few minutes a day when you can meditate all of the time?
Namaste
In 1, out 1, in 2, out 2, in 3 out 3.. up to 5. Then start again and go to 6, start again and go to 7. If you lose track, start again. 'course don't give 100% attention to counting, focus on your breath. The counting should just be a background task. See how far you can get in whatever amount of time you spend meditating.
Just sit resting for no less than 30 minutes.
Once u can rest for 30 minutes without getting up,
start meditating.
I remember when I would avoid meditation because I thought it could be boring. Now it's one of the most interesting things I can do. I think the difference is in mindfulness. One you have more awareness as to what your mind is doing, it becomes much more interesting.
Perhaps you can elaborate on what your current practice/technique is and people here can give more useful feedback.
When I see that my mind is restless, it helps to reduce the effort of staying with the breath, and increase the effort of seeing the distractions coming. Almost like your mind is "looking over your shoulder." Try it.
I really enjoy walking meditation and when I first started to do it I was surprised at the high level of concentration I could achieve while doing it. I've found that walking pretty slowly and noting: "lifting... right... lifting left" helped a lot with concentration. I also found that when doing sitting meditation immediately after walking meditation I could re-achieve good concentration quickly.
I think you should do both sitting and walking meditation, sometimes one after the other.
I've always thought that walking meditation should be encouraged for beginners since their foremost hindrances tends to be restlessness and sleepiness.
So far my technique is to sit down and focus on the breath. But then my mind starts going all over the place, I start getting fidgety and wanting to do something else. And when I do walking meditation I find that I can do it for longer periods of time, but I almost feel like I don't focus as well as I do sitting.
If we only did what we felt like and when we felt like it, we'd end up right back where we started.
If you don't feel like meditating, then don't impose rules on yourself which make you avoid meditation. When you're just starting, you don't have to sit on the floor. You don't have to be perfectly still the entire time. You don't have to deal with pain. You're only meditating 'wrong' if you're not meditating at least once per day.
External is keeping your eyes open and instead of focusing on what's going on inside of us, focus on everything else. You're meant to hear sounds and avoid judgement and labelling until it all meshes together into a stream, kind of like music. We don't generally listen to music and think "kick, hat, snare, hat, kick, bassline... solo, kick,kick,kick,kick, crash, verse", but when we hear something else we always label it "birds, door, kettle" and so on. Same thing applies to visuals. Instead of grouping everything into objects, allow tunnel vision to kick in and experience sight as it actually is.
I am not 100% sure about any of this, but I think the external kinds were more common back in the day.
My point was only in what I suggested as an alternative. Basically 24/7 meditation while awake.
There are only a few basic principles to mindfulness meditation. Everything else is just a technique that fits those principles. So the disagreements you hear are with the techniques, but not the underlying principles.
For example: A basic principle is that sleepiness is a hindrance that should be avoided. From this basic principle is a whole litany of "tricks" to suppress sleepiness. "keep your eyes open, turn on a light, take a deep breath, do walking meditation, cultivate energy, chant, put a bowl of marbles on your head, meditate on a cliff" etc etc etc.
While different teachers and traditions tend to use different tricks, the basic principle, that sleepiness is a hindrance, is the same.
So learn and adhere to the principles, but experiment and be open with the tricks.
I think most Vipassana meditators do it eyes closed. I've heard some Chan and Zen guys do it open.
You may want to try "mental noting." It definitely helps with restlessness and wandering mind. Simply put, you mentally note "breathing in... breathing out." And when a distraction comes up, put a broad label on it: "thinking" "feeling" "hearing" etc.
This technique is common in Vipassana. Jack Kornfield, a highly influential teacher (the teacher of many American teachers) advocates this technique.
Listen to this podcast:
http://www.zencast.org/zencast_32_mental_noting
This is a very, very powerful technique. One of the downsides is that insight may suffer if you are noting too powerfully. Another downside is that your ego can easily slip in through the backdoor if you're not careful.
You can always drop the mental noting later if you don't think you need it anymore.
Let me emphasize: This is a powerful tool. Depending on how you use it, it can be tweezers or a sledge hammer. Experiment.
Just because it doesn't feel like you're focusing doesn't mean it is true. Some types of concentration are so foreign that you think, "this can't possibly be concentration."
However, the fact that you can stick with walking meditation longer without getting restless suggests that you are getting more concentrated.
Be patient and stick to both practices.
I read that in Chan book. But pretty much all Vipassana sitting meditation I've read or heard involved closed eyes.
I think it's true that beginners will frequently tend to feel sleepiness, but this is mostly overcome in experience. You just need to reprogram your mind to not have the same Pavlovian response to closed eyes and subtle breath.
I don't see that as an alternative to meditation. In some ways, it's the goal of meditation -- to become more mindful 24/7 through structured practice.
But the question is how to achieve this round-the-clock mindfulness. Achieving this is such a so huge task that some type of confined practice (either sitting, walking, washing, etc) is needed for most people. Anything else is just too daunting and would discourage even very serious people.
Finally, the good thing about structured practice (like sitting meditation) is the level of concentration and insight you can achieve, compared with most "normal" activities. Of course, there are occasional exceptions, but I think this is the norm.
So be sure to note the distractions as well.
I'm Meditating at least 30 mins a day now.
Because is it you who wants to do something else and is fidgety or is it just thinking and some anxiety that's occurring? In reality it's just thinking and some anxiety. Where's the problem?
Woops, yeah just saw your most recent post. Awesome! You're beginning to see that the phenomena that are occurring are empty of self.
Have fun!