No Enjoyment In Meditation

[AHappyTeddyBear]

Literally started on 1 Day, survived til day 3 and then stopped because its simply no fun. Note that I did each session for 2-5 minutes.

 

[Naviy]

Maybe try guided meditations first.

Or watch more Leo's videos on meditation, read about meditation on the Internet to motivate yourself.

[Pallero]

Meditation is not fun. It's not supposed to be fun. It's like saying that running 10 km when you have never run before is fun.

You're supposed to want to do it for the benefits and then much later it can be tolerable and enjoyable, finally liberating and enlightening.

But if you can't keep yourself motivated, maybe you are starting too high. Try other, gentler types of relaxation and focusing exercises and then try meditation again.

[Markus]

Meditation may or may not be fun. Both are normal. If it's not fun, that especially means you should do it. Maybe start with the "Do nothing" technique. Leo has a video on it, so does Shinzen Young. 

As you get used to meditating, you start to enjoy the flavor of purification that discomfort gives you. Yesterday, I was at a point in strong determination sitting where I felt I couldn't take any more, so I moved my hand a checked my phone. 15 min was left on the clock. I sat through it, and the feeling I had after it was over was incredible. And so was in a sense the feeling as I was torturing myself: I knew I was purifying consciousness, learning to have equanimity with contractive forces.

Edited February 13, 2016 by Markus

[Henri]

For the western mind it is likely better to learn and do some pranayamas before starting your meditation.

[Alen]

I think Meditation is emotional labour, it sure isn't easy and fun to sit for one hour, not move at all and stay focused. In fact when I do it "Boredom" is killing me, but that is what makes it so powerfull. Besides all the physiological benefits, meditating makes you more persistant and strongens your will power.
Only with a lot of pracitce it can be truned into something relaxing and fun I think.

[Saarah]

This is one of the reasons I've been avoiding doing meditation but recently I decided to focus and I started focusing on 'doing nothing' as a theme of my PD endeavours. I'm reading a book about peacefulness which promotes the ideas of solitude and silence, and of course the next missing puzzle is meditation so I'm going to be forcing myself to get started on it now.

But this focus I'm having on this specific part of PD is actually motivating me to start giving meditation a try and so hopefully even if I get bored I will continue it due to the involvement and commitment I'm getting into. 

Im going to start off with mindfulness meditation because I really like mindfulness and so to have it as a meditation is good. I also briefly read yesterday about compassion meditation. It's a bit better than some other forms of meditation as a beginner who gets bored like me because you're not completely still but at the same time you are focusing yourself, I haven't read much on it yet but I think you should look it up! 

[Leo Gura]

The problem is that your expectations are all wrong about this.

You did it for 3 days for 5 minutes and you expect it to be fun?

Try doing it for 2 years at 30 minutes per day. Then it might get a little fun. Still, don't expect too much fun.

Don't be comparing meditation with porn, video games, internet, or movies. << These are all addictions that you need to ween yourself off of.

For meditation to get really fun will take 5 to 20 years.