Trouble mantaining a consistent meditation practice

[sleep]

Anyone else have trouble with this? For the life of me, it seems that I can't mantain the habit of meditating every day. Maybe it's because I haven't had any remarkable experiences or anything like that, so I'm not sure it actually does anything. 

Any help would be appreciated. If one of you could convince me it's worth it that would be pretty cool too. 

[Consilience]

I would recommend reading the book "The Mind Illuminated" which provides a long term road map of meditation progress across 10 progressively deeper stages of practice. As you progress across the stages, your experiences while meditating will become progressively more mystical and intrinsically rewarding. Once you're established at around stage 7 - 8, you can also start learning how to access jhana states, which are even more mystical. 

However it's worth mentioning this as well - as you start to reliably gain access to these mystical states with practice, their value starts to diminish. While on the one hand, it's utterly profound that the deepest states of emotional happiness and pleasure exist entirely from within, we do start to realize that this mundane, boring, fatigued, sober state as it is in this moment is just as mystical as the most profound mystical states you can achieve through meditation or even psychedelics. A mark of maturity on the path is recognizing an equilibrium across all states.

This recognition of the 'divinity' of all states, all perceptions, all forms of suffering, bliss, dissatisfaction, and satisfaction, as they are, exactly as they appear, as an expression of the Absolute is where meditation practice leads in the long run. From this context, meditation is not about getting something or doing anything at all, it is merely about being exactly where you are. There is nothing to do and no where to go. Letting these profound mystical states carry you home, carry you nowhere at all is the path. I may also recommend practicing "do nothing" meditation in tandem with the techniques outlined in T.M.I., is it will help balance out some of the inevitable over-efforting goal based practice produces.

When it comes to daily practice, I would establish a daily minimum, something so stupid easy you can't not do it. For me, it's 10 minutes per day. I know even when I feel my worst, I can sit down and do 10 minutes. When I first began practice, I would have made it something like 1 minute per day as my daily minimum. Daily consistency is the most important variable of practice when you're first starting out. Ideally, you want to work up to an hour per day.

As far as motivation, this is why I recommend "The Mind Illuminated" as it gives you something extremely tangible to work towards while also facilitating absurdly deep states of consciousness. The skills you develop using that system will serve invaluable in pretty much all domains of life and every step along your own spiritual path. But more than that, meditation is an entry way into God, into what you really are. The amount of empowerment, fulfillment, wisdom, compassion you start to experience when being able to sit in your own being is ineffable. The skills you develop from meditation are THE keys to living a good life... Yes it's a fucking grind for the first few years. Hell maybe the first 10. But if you're serious about the work, it becomes magic, all of life becomes magic as the distinction between practice and every day life fall away. 

In my opinion, trust that feeling in your gut that's pulling you to turn within. The fact that we live in an age of such distraction and over-stimulation yet you feel a calling to turn your attention inward is beyond significant. It's only until you advance a long will you realize just how significant it really is. 

Hope this helps. 
 

[The0Self]

1 minute ago, Consilience said:

I would recommend reading the book "The Mind Illuminated" which provides a long term road map of meditation progress across 10 progressively deeper stages of practice. As you progress across the stages, your experiences while meditating will become progressively more mystical and intrinsically rewarding. Once you're established at around stage 7 - 8, you can also start learning how to access jhana states, which are even more mystical. 

However it's worth mentioning this as well - as you start to reliably gain access to these mystical states with practice, their value starts to diminish. While on the one hand, it's utterly profound that the deepest states of emotional happiness and pleasure exist entirely from within, we do start to realize that this mundane, boring, fatigued, sober state as it is in this moment is just as mystical as the most profound mystical states you can achieve through meditation or even psychedelics. A mark of maturity on the path is recognizing an equilibrium across all states.

This recognition of the 'divinity' of all states, all perceptions, all forms of suffering, bliss, dissatisfaction, and satisfaction, as they are, exactly as they appear, as an expression of the Absolute is where meditation practice leads in the long run. From this context, meditation is not about getting something or doing anything at all, it is merely about being exactly where you are. There is nothing to do and no where to go. Letting these profound mystical states carry you home, carry you nowhere at all is the path. I may also recommend practicing "do nothing" meditation in tandem with the techniques outlined in T.M.I., is it will help balance out some of the inevitable over-efforting goal based practice produces.

When it comes to daily practice, I would establish a daily minimum, something so stupid easy you can't not do it. For me, it's 10 minutes per day. I know even when I feel my worst, I can sit down and do 10 minutes. When I first began practice, I would have made it something like 1 minute per day as my daily minimum. Daily consistency is the most important variable of practice when you're first starting out. Ideally, you want to work up to an hour per day.

As far as motivation, this is why I recommend "The Mind Illuminated" as it gives you something extremely tangible to work towards while also facilitating absurdly deep states of consciousness. The skills you develop using that system will serve invaluable in pretty much all domains of life and every step along your own spiritual path. But more than that, meditation is an entry way into God, into what you really are. The amount of empowerment, fulfillment, wisdom, compassion you start to experience when being able to sit in your own being is ineffable. The skills you develop from meditation are THE keys to living a good life... Yes it's a fucking grind for the first few years. Hell maybe the first 10. But if you're serious about the work, it becomes magic, all of life becomes magic as the distinction between practice and every day life fall away. 

In my opinion, trust that feeling in your gut that's pulling you to turn within. The fact that we live in an age of such distraction and over-stimulation yet you feel a calling to turn your attention inward is beyond significant. It's only until you advance a long will you realize just how significant it really is. 

Hope this helps. 
 

^^ Ridiculously helpful stuff, OP.

What he said. All of it.

[Consilience]

5 minutes ago, The0Self said:

^^ Ridiculously helpful stuff, OP.

What he said. All of it.

?

[SriSriJustinBieber]

A helpful tip is to ask yourself "what is my intention ?" as a preparation for meditation

Why would you want to meditate in the first place ?

[RickyFitts]

56 minutes ago, Consilience said:

From this context, meditation is not about getting something or doing anything at all, it is merely about being exactly where you are. There is nothing to do and no where to go.

Yes, exactly. Exactly this. Often people are trying to manufacture a certain state, they're trying to control their experience in some way - that isn't meditation as far as I'm concerned, that's a waste of time.

For me, meditation is simply a state of non-resistance. It's a relaxation as much as anything, an allowing.

[Rigel]

I grinded meditation for over 2 years before I had to take a couple months off. Now I am a lot less stubborn, I enjoy it a lot more and I can see the ENORMOUS difference it makes on the rest of my day(where as I couldnt see it before cause I was forcing myself to do it) so naturaly I want to do it. 

Leo said that recently: Enjoy it!

Don't beat yourself up over missing a day. If you really feel like meditating It's gonna be so much more potent. But it is still true that practice makes perfect and consistency is key. 

Do the practice for the practice itself not to get somewhere. 

Theres no easy answer here 

[gettoefl]

your mind is fighting you tooth and nail, it sees its impending death, yet you are siding with your mind for yet another lifetime

no i am not waking up in the wee hours to sit in cold boring silence, i am going back to sleep man, i am cool thanks anyway

[RedLine]

6 hours ago, Consilience said:

I would recommend reading the book "The Mind Illuminated" which provides a long term road map of meditation progress across 10 progressively deeper stages of practice. As you progress across the stages, your experiences while meditating will become progressively more mystical and intrinsically rewarding. Once you're established at around stage 7 - 8, you can also start learning how to access jhana states, which are even more mystical. 

However it's worth mentioning this as well - as you start to reliably gain access to these mystical states with practice, their value starts to diminish. While on the one hand, it's utterly profound that the deepest states of emotional happiness and pleasure exist entirely from within, we do start to realize that this mundane, boring, fatigued, sober state as it is in this moment is just as mystical as the most profound mystical states you can achieve through meditation or even psychedelics. A mark of maturity on the path is recognizing an equilibrium across all states.

This recognition of the 'divinity' of all states, all perceptions, all forms of suffering, bliss, dissatisfaction, and satisfaction, as they are, exactly as they appear, as an expression of the Absolute is where meditation practice leads in the long run. From this context, meditation is not about getting something or doing anything at all, it is merely about being exactly where you are. There is nothing to do and no where to go. Letting these profound mystical states carry you home, carry you nowhere at all is the path. I may also recommend practicing "do nothing" meditation in tandem with the techniques outlined in T.M.I., is it will help balance out some of the inevitable over-efforting goal based practice produces.

When it comes to daily practice, I would establish a daily minimum, something so stupid easy you can't not do it. For me, it's 10 minutes per day. I know even when I feel my worst, I can sit down and do 10 minutes. When I first began practice, I would have made it something like 1 minute per day as my daily minimum. Daily consistency is the most important variable of practice when you're first starting out. Ideally, you want to work up to an hour per day.

As far as motivation, this is why I recommend "The Mind Illuminated" as it gives you something extremely tangible to work towards while also facilitating absurdly deep states of consciousness. The skills you develop using that system will serve invaluable in pretty much all domains of life and every step along your own spiritual path. But more than that, meditation is an entry way into God, into what you really are. The amount of empowerment, fulfillment, wisdom, compassion you start to experience when being able to sit in your own being is ineffable. The skills you develop from meditation are THE keys to living a good life... Yes it's a fucking grind for the first few years. Hell maybe the first 10. But if you're serious about the work, it becomes magic, all of life becomes magic as the distinction between practice and every day life fall away. 

In my opinion, trust that feeling in your gut that's pulling you to turn within. The fact that we live in an age of such distraction and over-stimulation yet you feel a calling to turn your attention inward is beyond significant. It's only until you advance a long will you realize just how significant it really is. 

Hope this helps. 
 

With TMI I always have the doubt if I should focus hard on the object (stomach in my case) or be more relaxed into peripheral awareness and have the meditation object as a "second priority"; I experiencie the second one as more "mindufull" and the first one as most narrow and concentrate. 

 

The problem I find whit this system is that it does not specify the degree of attention you should put in the object so my meditation is mostly disturbed by my doubs about this trade-off between laser attention vs awareness. It spoils my meditation so I just prefere to practicse only concentration meditation or only mindulness meditation, but both togheter are a mess for me.

[sleep]

@Consilience Hello, thanks for your comprehensive response. T.M.I is actually the meditation program that I've been trying to follow for a couple of years. I think the level of complexity in it might actually be detracting me from continuing the practice. How do I put it? The more moving parts a practice has, the less desirable it seems to me; I'm a fan of simple things. 

I'll take up your advice on establishing a daily minimum, thanks again for your advice. 

[sleep]

7 hours ago, SriSriJustinBieber said:

A helpful tip is to ask yourself "what is my intention ?" as a preparation for meditation

Why would you want to meditate in the first place ?

@SriSriJustinBieber That is a good tip and a good question. I'm honestly not sure, I think I mainly want to experience pleasant sensations, and meditation seems like a good way to go about it. 

[The0Self]

2 hours ago, RedLine said:

With TMI I always have the doubt if I should focus hard on the object (stomach in my case) or be more relaxed into peripheral awareness and have the meditation object as a "second priority"; I experiencie the second one as more "mindufull" and the first one as most narrow and concentrate. 

 

The problem I find whit this system is that it does not specify the degree of attention you should put in the object so my meditation is mostly disturbed by my doubs about this trade-off between laser attention vs awareness. It spoils my meditation so I just prefere to practicse only concentration meditation or only mindulness meditation, but both togheter are a mess for me.

Oh you play with the balance. Play and play until your mind learns and basically gets molded into shape from learning that y happens when x is tweaked. For me it ended up being a very light touch of attention on the object with rather the majority of conscious power on the periphery — but then you use a sort of balancing act where you’re ready to change that balance depending on hindrances that arise.

Basically, it’s incredibly 1. subtle, and 2. dynamic. Don’t be overwhelmed, this will develop in time rather automatically if you’re experiencing at least some joy/bliss and sitting an hour every single day.

Edited September 2, 2021 by The0Self

[RedLine]

1 hour ago, The0Self said:

Oh you play with the balance. Play and play until your mind learns and basically gets molded into shape from learning that y happens when x is tweaked. For me it ended up being a very light touch of attention on the object with rather the majority of conscious power on the periphery — but then you use a sort of balancing act where you’re ready to change that balance depending on hindrances that arise.

Basically, it’s incredibly 1. subtle, and 2. dynamic. Don’t be overwhelmed, this will develop in time rather automatically if you’re experiencing at least some joy/bliss and sitting an hour every single day.

make sense, thank you!  I am also very inclined to awareness but I feel guilty to don´t put laser attention on the object and doubts about if I am doing the meditaiton correctly arise; but you says it is no problem so you give me relief

Edited September 2, 2021 by RedLine

[The0Self]

20 minutes ago, RedLine said:

make sense, thank you!  I am also very inclined to awareness but I feel guilty to don´t put laser attention on the object and doubts about if I am doing the meditaiton correctly arise; but you says it is no problem so you give me relief

Yeah it's almost like learning how to swim faster or play guitar better -- the movement patterns can't really be taught with mere words, they just develop automatically after hundreds of hours of practice and intuitive, non-mental active learning, with maybe a bit of tweaks along the way. But it's mostly an automatic development of movement patterns -- like the movement patterns of walking -- despite their immense complexity, they happen and develop automatically. If you had to consciously and lucidly intend on every single muscular contraction involved in walking, it would be overwhelming, but luckily, movement patterns develop automatically with high-level, non-conceptual "intelligence."