Meditation is not something one masters overnight. Many struggles with it. Some give up way too early. I struggled with it for years. It was a great enigma to me. And I attached much negativity and self-loathing to it. It is just sitting there and being quiet. It should be easy, right?
I was introduced to meditation at a very young age. But didn’t get around to do a good job. See the words I used there to describe it? I attributed my inability to meditate to my usual lackluster approach to anything deemed good or useful. Again, see the words I’m using here?
Bear with me. Meditating for my younger self was something like studying. Like doing homework. Something good kids were good at. Like your sibling and your best friend. Teachers used to praise them for their meditation skills.
I don’t know how I decided that the teacher was able to decide how good they were at meditation. As it is not something you can see from outside. Maybe I was fidgety? However, knowing these other kids; I know that they would have made a genuine effort. They are not flakers. Obviously.
Like in many dilemmas in life. It’s helpful to ponder on the problem before you jump into figuring out the answer. I’m trying to be that person who gives due regard and time to the question. Because I want to understand. But this evaded me in meditation. I didn’t spend enough time to get hold of the problem. Whenever I had enough wherewithal to sit down to meditate, I was too eager to get it right. And it became something I kept being not so good at. I continued to believe this is not something that comes to me naturally.
On the flip-side too much thinking is bad in this. Just doing it is the way to go. I’ll get to it later in this post.
But for now, what are the barriers to get into meditation? First and foremost; it’s the definition. Or the definition we currently have given it. Hence it helps to find the definition that most resonates with you. Mine came from my mother as a piece of advice. I was complaining to her about how terrible I am at meditation. She told me. ‘if you can’t meditate, just sit in meditation pose, it’ll come to you’.
Come to me, it did. It was fleeting. But it was momentous. It’s momentous because it propels you to stick to it. And in that passing moment you enjoy the true joy of being in the moment. You never forget that pure clarity. That’s when it became easier. Because all I did was like she instructed sticking to it and sitting there. Mind you, it’s not all smooth sailing after that. It’s sticking to it perpetually that helps. At least you are doing it. ‘Something is indeed better than nothing’ in this case
According to Ekhart Tolle, the German spiritual teacher; ‘one conscious breath in and out is a meditation’. So, start with one conscious breath. Start by sitting there with that intention. And pat your back for sitting there, for that one breath. Because it’s not something you are going to achieve by berating yourself. We are going to achieve nothing by berating ourselves. Definitely nothing for self-awareness.
Besides, if it’s sitting-meditation that you are attempting; meditation IS just that. Sitting there. That is according to Zen teachings.
I was looking for a Zen book while at a yoga retreat and told my yoga teacher that I’m searching for a good Zen book and whether she could recommend one to me. We couldn’t find the one she would like me to have in the many book stores in the village surrounding the retreat. So she gifted me ‘Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki’ when she got back home. When I received the book, it’s not what I expected. I expected something simple like the Zen stories that we grew up reading. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind was a hard read. It was difficult to comprehend and the context was too foreign for me. I expected a simple book with effortlessly written short stories.
I read it anyway. I read it to the end because she sent it all the way from the other side of the world and it cost her unreasonable amount of money to ship it. I’m glad I made the effort to read it till the end. Because like all things Zen, the lesson was simple. Simple yet profound. The lesson was Sazen. Sazen refers to the meditative pose that you sit in. that’s it. it means sitting there. Just sitting there. Sitting there without expectations. In total comfort and ease. With full acceptance of now.
So, sit down to it every day. Sit down without the burden of expectation. Sit only with the intention that ‘I’m sitting down to meditate’. And know it’s not outside of you. That it’s not something you need to achieve. And that it’s not something which levelheaded people do so easily. It all begins with kindness. Kindness to yourself. Know that you are doing great by sitting down every day to meditate. Know that sitting down to meditate and trying to meditate is also meditation. The effort counts. You are giving yourself; you brain a clear task to look forward to. You are giving it a clear message of your intention.
Find your definition of meditation. Find the most simple, clearest and most unassuming definition. Don’t attach too much theory to it. Not at first. Keep postponing attaching theory to it. In the end it’s like doing a yoga asana. It’ll be about taking the mind out of it.
You may have tried and failed. Tried and failed. Look at your approach. Are you setting the wrong expectation on yourself? How about starting with one conscious breath a day? And don’t do 2 breaths if 2 is not working out for you. Stick to one breath a day for as long as you need to.
Sit and write down why you think meditation is hard for you. Spend enough time to understand the problem. If anything, this is a subject worth all the time you spend on it to understand.
It’s not only meditation that leads to self-discovery, it’s the preparing your mind to it too. All this contemplation will clear many things out for you. Sometimes it’s about removing that mental block. But most of the time, it’s simply the old fashioned ‘just doing it’
It helps to understand from the experience of others. Hence reading a little on it is helpful. However, the operative word is ‘little’. Because you don’t need a lot of theory. A lot of theory could negate what you are trying to achieve here. A ‘respite’ to your mind. One small yet useful tip I learnt from the teachings on meditation is that, the mind hates meditation. Even though you are trying meditation to help the mind, mind hates it because it puts shackles on the main task of the mind. Thinking. Mind’s main task is to think. Therefore, mind naturally dislikes meditation. I’m leaving this tip here because knowing this helped me. Hope it helps you too.
Try scheduling meditation after Pranayama. Pranayama is an active practice. Not a passive practice. But it’s helpful to pave the way to those with a more active mind, like mine. And if you still find meditation unpalatable, stick to Pranayama for the first attempts. For as long as you need to even. But keep coming back to meditation. Keep check whether you are ready for meditation. Keep checking your readiness. Test the waters. The only way you are going to learn how to swim.
Finally, it’s not something you do. It’s something you let. Breath is not something you do. It’s something that happens without your intervention. It’s something you can observe while the body does its thing.
Hope you would practice sitting down and being kind to yourself.