My 7 Day No-Meditation Experiment Results

[ardacigin]

Hey folks. I've recently experimented with how I've used to live life in a non-meditative manner and wanted to see how this non-meditator lifestyle would affect my consciousness after meditating seriously for 2-3 years. I wanted to see how deep the samadhi that I've developed actually is with these daily 90-120 mins long cross-legged SDS sits.

The results are interesting. I've attempted to stop meditating for 7 days and literally just focused on my hobbies like piano playing, video games, career and socializing in a non-meditator quality of attachment and drivenness. 

First of all, I was reminded that once you go so long as 7 days not meditating, the samadhi you develop in formal sits slowly goes away. But it goes away in a need to use fashion, meaning I can go back to my deepest mindful state in a matter of 15 mins if I'm relatively calm. If I'm frantic and monkey mind just doesn't shut up (this happened a lot when I was playing the piano and trying to arrange a complex jazz piece fully by ear. The melody was literally spinning my head), I can still go back to a deep place in about 45 mins in a formal session. 

So samadhi is not lost at its deepest sense. I haven't turned into a non-meditator and lost all my mindfulness skills. Kind of feels like how a musician loses a little bit of technique and dexterity but still maintains muscle memory after a few months of not playing their instrument. I feel like this is exactly what happens in meditation if you are at a certain level of expertise.

Here is my first insight into this experiment:

1 - My appreciation of formal meditation sits has SKYROCKETED!

As some of you may know, I meditate with Culadasa's 'The Mind Illuminated'. If you haven't read that book, it is life changing. Check out my other posts about how I do his advanced breath meditation.

Now after 7 days of no meditation, one might think that I'll have an aversion to long formal sits. And it is true because that is a part of what I've experienced. After the momentum of non-meditation sets in about 3-4 days, you don't want to sit still anymore. You want to CONSTANTLY think about something. If not thinking, you want to focus outwardly. Whether that is playing the piano, video games, chatting with family members, cracking jokes or exercising. You don't want to spend long periods of time in silence.

But once I went back to my first 60 minutes long formal SDS (strong determination sit), I've CLEARLY experienced the biggest difference compared to those 7 days of non-meditation: Lack of monkey mind related to heightened stability of attention.

My biggest issue in these 7 days is that I've experienced a lot monkey mind since I don't have a meditation object. My only way of attaining samadhi is to get into focused flow states as I'm talking to people, playing games and doing stuff by fluke luck. For instance, If I had enough concentration and energy at the time, I had a good time playing the piano. If not, I felt sluggish. Very tired. Sleepy and dissatisfied with life overall. 

But I've realized that this experiment actually resulted in a positive change in my personality.

2- Letting go of meditative effort resulted in spontaneity in socializing and created a bouncy, talkative and 'joker' personality.

Since Culadasa's breath work is a highly effort intensive technique, I felt like bringing the meditative state to socializing is always such a challenge. The meditative state puts you into a certain brain state with its distinctive brainwaves, blood flows and mood changes.

I personally tend to get very non-reactive, calm, emotionless and non-talkative when I bring the breath meditation to daily life. But this results in a less than effective training in 'self-expression' and positive behavior change.

If spirituality is about life, suffering and consciousness, it must include a wide spectrum of daily life activities. Some of these are socializing, personality, positive behavior changes and enlightened self-expression.

So letting go of effort actually RADICALLY  improved my social skills, eliminated egoic anxiety and elevated overall comfort and happiness levels while I'm around with people.

I'm cracking jokes all the time. But due to my uncensored effortless socializing, I also may have acted rude to people. So not everything went as well in my subjective experience. Maybe some of the jokes I've made can be interpreted as 'picking on' people. I'm still working on modifying some of my egoic behavior patterns.

But so far, so good. Letting go of meditation on the breath enabled me to have a better experience socializing with people. Less suffering and more joy. Less serious and more spontaneous. More self-expressive and less non-reactive. 

3- Stability of Attention is KING!!

One of the biggest problems in these 7 days was the exhausting monkey mind. Mind wandering occurs almost immediately when you stop focusing outwardly. Since I can't meditate, I can't sit still and look inwards to entangle emotions. I also can't stabilize attention to the breath. So the attention just goes to the movement of repetitive thoughts in a fixated and attached manner.

Just go go go mentality is very tiring even though my daily practice enabled me to have more equanimity with the monkey mind. I've still felt the enormous suffering which resides behind subtle mental talk and planning.

Since I've been meditating for 2-3 years everyday for at least 60 mins formally, I've taken for granted the stability of attention and mental quiet I've been cultivating and remembered the fixated mental suffering that is the monkey mind. 

I'm thankful for my teacher Culadasa to help me develop stability of attention to the breath because this enables me to have a drip down effect of samadhi in daily life for rest of the day if I've practiced diligently in that session. 

2 hours SDS sits are monsters when it comes to setting the tone for the rest of the day. Almost nothing can bother you after a 2 hour long SDS sit. 

And with the 7 day no meditation challenge, the monkey mind can go VERY deep. I've forgotten how even a 15-minute formal meditation sit centers me in light samadhi shielding me from heavy monkey mind for hours. 

4- Take 3-4 days off from formal and informal meditation every 6 months.

This advice is only for people who are already meditating like crazy on a daily basis for at least 1-2 years. 

Especially take a few days off in a strategic manner like I did, if you are starting to develop an aversion to formal meditation sits. Start observing like I did the positive and negative effects of lack of formal sits. 

I don't recommend doing a 7 days of full unconsciousness experiment as I did, I actually went a little overboard to see how bad the monkey mind will get. Just do a 4 day long TOPS experiment to see how you are like without formal sits. 

You don't want to go unconscious that long uninterrupted. 

This strategic move will surely bring the excitement, fresh perspective and the dynamism the formal practice needs. Because let's be honest, after years of daily meditation, the technique can become too mechanical and you might lose the joy of altering your consciousness in such a specific way. That is the primary reason people stop meditating after awhile.

Just don't forget to come back to the formal sits with enthusiasm and excitement after taking a few days off. This is the point of this strategic 'retreat'. 

Thank you for reading my report.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

 

 

Edited June 10, 2019 by ardacigin

[ThinAir]

Very interesting experiment. A friend of mine did the same a while back. He told me how much more he appreciated it afterwards and how big the differenct between with meditation and without is, good reminder for him

Tanks for posting

[ValiantSalvatore]

@ardacigin Interesting, unfortunately I had last year a set back for a couple of weeks. Also, with a formal meditation habit of 1h a day. Rarely shorter depends on the circumstance. ( I had a solid meditation habit of 3y approx) 

I also can't sit crossed legged I tried some strechting exercises in the morning to gain some flexibility, so I set in the burmese position. 

I also noticed thaz I become very unconscious, a "foggy or nebulous mind" came back and I could feel the thickness of the unconsciousness. 

Awesome that you can do 2h of SDS, 1h and 30min most often is enough for me. Also, that was the duration of all the retreats I attended so far which is not that much. 

Thanks for the report! Definitely insightful.