Do You Attempt To Stay Present Throughout Your Day As Well?

[john5170]

I know you should stay present during your meditation session. 20 minutes, 1 hour, whatever.

But after you are done, are you trying to minimize "monkey head" and stay present throughout your day?

Will my meditation session benefits get ruined if I get in my head immediately after and not even try to fix it?

[Prabhaker]

@john5170

Basic idea is that a few minutes every day should be given to meditation.

And what will you do in the remaining time? Whatever you will gain in twenty minutes…what are you going to do in the remaining twenty-three hours and forty minutes? – something anti-meditative. Naturally your twenty minutes will be defeated. The enemies are too big, and you are giving too much juice and energy to the enemies and just twenty minutes for meditation. No, meditation in the past has not been able to bring a rebellion in the world because of these fallacies.

You can learn meditation for twenty minutes or forty minutes – learning is one thing – but then you have to carry whatever you have learned day in, day out. Meditation has to become just like your heartbeat. 

First, while you are awake, from the moment you wake up, immediately catch hold of the thread of remaining alert and conscious, because that is the most precious moment to catch the thread of consciousness. In the day you will forget many times – but the moment you remember, immediately start being alert. Never repent, because that is a sheer wastage of time. Never repent, “My God, I forgot again!”

Whatever has happened is gone. Now there is no need to waste time on it. Catch hold again of the thread of awareness. Slowly, slowly you will be able to be alert the whole day: an undercurrent of awareness in every act, in every movement, in everything that you are doing or not doing. Something underneath will be continuously flowing.

[john5170]

Ok thanks for the replies.

So if I can stay present and meditate for big chunks of time throughout the day, do I still need to do the '20 minute sit down meditation' session?

[Bob84]

On 3/17/2017 at 6:44 AM, john5170 said:

I know you should stay present during your meditation session. 20 minutes, 1 hour, whatever.

But after you are done, are you trying to minimize "monkey head" and stay present throughout your day?

Will my meditation session benefits get ruined if I get in my head immediately after and not even try to fix it?

You could also take it further. Like staying present when walking the dog for 20 min. Or other activity that doesn require much thinking.

[john5170]

If I try to stay present all day, then that will put too much stress on my brain, don't you think?

Similar to working out at the gym - you do your 1 hour (or whatever) session, then you can relax throughout the day.... no?

Edited March 19, 2017 by john5170

[LRyan]

I have got to the point where I do stay present most of the day if I am alone but once i answer a phone call or have to see family, I go unconscious because of getting wrapped up in what others say and then after when I'm alone I ask, why did you do that, why did you respond in ways you don't want to and then I realize that I lost present awareness during the entire conversation.  I notice the watcher of all of these missteps and it is not going unnoticed so I do notice when I am not present but sometimes it's hard and I "go to sleep" again for periods of time.

I also have not mastered meditation yet.  Maybe if we could get good at Meditation it would give us a better chance at staying in the present.  I meditate every day, some days are very good, other days are frustrating....

[Bob84]

5 hours ago, john5170 said:

If I try to stay present all day, then that will put too much stress on my brain, don't you think?

Similar to working out at the gym - you do your 1 hour (or whatever) session, then you can relax throughout the day.... no?

No
You are already present the whole day. Its just that your attention is somewhere else. What you are doing is controlling where your attention goes to. I must stay present thinking is mental masturbation between egos. Which is fine, as this is progress in a sense.

True presence in a sense is awareness without thinking. But don't worry to much about that cause you can easily mindfuck yourself into thinking that you are not thinking.

Focus on how the air feels on your hand when you are outside, feel how the water goes over your hands when you wash them, feel your big toe in your shoes, etc. This is effortless. When you do this, your attention is on your body and out of your head. The attention will go from your body to your head all the time. That is fine, don't try to resist this.
This practice is about you becoming aware of your attention on a other level.