I’ve read a bunch of different meditation guides and as a result, I’ve ended up with a sort of a hybrid form of practice that uses various bits from here and there. Still, if I had to point to a single guide, the meditation that I do on most days is closest to tranquility meditation. I’ve found that drinking a cup of strong green tea about half an hour before practice makes it easier.
I do timed sits, setting a timer to anywhere between 15 and 60 minutes, and try to practice tranquility meditation until the timer goes off. Sometimes it’s easy and effortless, sometimes it’s a struggle not to quit after the first five minutes. But regardless of how I feel, I do try to get at least 15 minutes of practice in each day—I figure that even if I can’t seem to get any benefit out of it at the moment, it’ll still improve my concentration skills and make the next time a little easier. Don’t be discouraged if you can’t meditate this long in the beginning—when I started doing meditation practice last summer, even 5 minutes was a challenge, and 15 pretty much plain impossible. But with enough 5-minute sits, longer periods eventually became possible. If you’re using your breath as a focus, it can help to count the breaths in your mind, resetting the count back to zero whenever you realize that your attention has wandered off. At least for me, the act of resetting the count seems to act as an additional feedback signal for my brain, making it easier to focus.
A little counter-intuitively, meditation seems easier if I have some mild discomfort, like an itchy skin, feeling slightly ill from having strong tea on an empty stomach, or an excess awareness of saliva secreting in my mouth. My attention keeps getting automatically drawn to these discomforts, so I can use them as an extra meditation focus in addition to my breath. Over time (several sits) it may become harder to use them as foci, though, as they stop feeling uncomfortable.
This relates to what I find to be absolutely the most valuable skill taught by meditation: the ability to take any uncomfortable feeling, neutrally observe it, and eventually have it stop feeling uncomfortable. Note that in order for this to work, you shouldn’t try to make it stop feeling uncomfortable—rather, you should really just observe it neutrally, letting go of all desires relating to it, including a desire for it to stop feeling bad. It’s a little difficult to explain, but you should get it with enough practice.
What a lot of guides don’t seem to mention is that while sits are very valuable and helpful, to get the most benefits out of it you should be practicing mindfulness whenever you get the chance! For instance, you can practice mindfulness:
While walking somewhere: focus your attention and your thoughts to the way your body feels, the way your various muscles feel, any possible tensions you feel. Breathe deeply and enjoy the pleasant feeling that comes from just feeling your body and your breath.
While cleaning, brushing your teeth, making food, or performing any other activity that doesn’t require thought. Instead of your thoughts drifting off, use whatever it is that you’re doing as your meditation focus, trying to concentrate on just that and not thinking about something else.
Whenever you’re waiting for something and feeling impatient. Instead of digging up your phone or looking for some other distraction, take the opportunity to practice meditation (with your eyes open, if need be) and neutrally observe the impatience until it goes away. Public transit is great for this - I get a lot of meditation practice done while waiting for or riding a bus.
Whenever you feel any negative sensation at all! If you for any reason feel bad, you have the option of turning that negative feeling into a meditation focus and watching and studying it until it stops feeling bad. (Possibly the hardest part is in remembering that this option exists.) I have used mindfulness practice to attack feelings of irritation or impatience when talking with people, urges to keep checking my Facebook/e-mail/IRC/Google+ every five minutes, and a reluctance to do something that I should be doing. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it can make you feel a lot better and be a great akrasia-killer. A week back I managed to conquer my nervousness and ask a total stranger in a café on a date, and I have a strong suspicion that I wouldn’t have been able to do that without mindfulness practice. (She was already taken, but very flattered that I asked.)
I’m still a beginner when it comes to meditation, having only done regular practice for about two months, and sporadic and irregular practice for a year. On a lot of days, my attention keeps wandering during my sit, and for the rest of the day I feel just as emotional and easily distracted as always. But on there are also times (like today) when the whole day feels like one long extended session of mindfulness practice. Whenever I’m doing anything that doesn’t require thought, I focus on my breath and on my body, and start to feel increasingly good as a consequence. Whenever I am doing something that does require thought, I use mindfulness as a way to keep my thoughts on that topic and not perform worse because I keep thinking about something else. Each feeling of discomfort becomes something to be celebrated, because it gives me a chance to practice my skills further—aha, I don’t feel like doing X! Now I can do X and focus on that feeling of not wanting to do it, and see if it goes away! Bummer, now it did go away, I’ll have to find something else useful that I wouldn’t want to be doing after I finish with X! It becomes difficult for anything to make me feel bad, when sensations of something feeling unpleasant turn into something that I actively hunt after and am glad to find—and when I do find them, they rapidly stop feeling unpleasant.
Like I said, most days don’t feel like this. Like anything that involves learning and internalizing new ways of thinking, it’s a two-steps-forward, one-step-back, four-steps-forward, seven-steps-back, three-steps-forward, half-a-step-back kind of process. But I think those kinds of days are slowly becoming more common, and when I do have one of those days, it’s awesome.
(I’ve posted about some theories of how/why meditation works here and here.)
A little counter-intuitively, meditation seems easier if I have some mild discomfort, like an itchy skin, feeling slightly ill from having strong tea on an empty stomach, or an excess awareness of saliva secreting in my mouth. My attention keeps getting automatically drawn to these discomforts, so I can use them as an extra meditation focus in addition to my breath. Over time (several sits) it may become harder to use them as foci, though, as they stop feeling uncomfortable.
Headaches work for me. There are also some types of strong negative emotions which improve my meditation enormously, while others prevent meditation from working.
I’ve read a bunch of different meditation guides and as a result, I’ve ended up with a sort of a hybrid form of practice that uses various bits from here and there. Still, if I had to point to a single guide, the meditation that I do on most days is closest to tranquility meditation. I’ve found that drinking a cup of strong green tea about half an hour before practice makes it easier.
I do timed sits, setting a timer to anywhere between 15 and 60 minutes, and try to practice tranquility meditation until the timer goes off. Sometimes it’s easy and effortless, sometimes it’s a struggle not to quit after the first five minutes. But regardless of how I feel, I do try to get at least 15 minutes of practice in each day—I figure that even if I can’t seem to get any benefit out of it at the moment, it’ll still improve my concentration skills and make the next time a little easier. Don’t be discouraged if you can’t meditate this long in the beginning—when I started doing meditation practice last summer, even 5 minutes was a challenge, and 15 pretty much plain impossible. But with enough 5-minute sits, longer periods eventually became possible. If you’re using your breath as a focus, it can help to count the breaths in your mind, resetting the count back to zero whenever you realize that your attention has wandered off. At least for me, the act of resetting the count seems to act as an additional feedback signal for my brain, making it easier to focus.
A little counter-intuitively, meditation seems easier if I have some mild discomfort, like an itchy skin, feeling slightly ill from having strong tea on an empty stomach, or an excess awareness of saliva secreting in my mouth. My attention keeps getting automatically drawn to these discomforts, so I can use them as an extra meditation focus in addition to my breath. Over time (several sits) it may become harder to use them as foci, though, as they stop feeling uncomfortable.
This relates to what I find to be absolutely the most valuable skill taught by meditation: the ability to take any uncomfortable feeling, neutrally observe it, and eventually have it stop feeling uncomfortable. Note that in order for this to work, you shouldn’t try to make it stop feeling uncomfortable—rather, you should really just observe it neutrally, letting go of all desires relating to it, including a desire for it to stop feeling bad. It’s a little difficult to explain, but you should get it with enough practice.
What a lot of guides don’t seem to mention is that while sits are very valuable and helpful, to get the most benefits out of it you should be practicing mindfulness whenever you get the chance! For instance, you can practice mindfulness:
While walking somewhere: focus your attention and your thoughts to the way your body feels, the way your various muscles feel, any possible tensions you feel. Breathe deeply and enjoy the pleasant feeling that comes from just feeling your body and your breath.
While cleaning, brushing your teeth, making food, or performing any other activity that doesn’t require thought. Instead of your thoughts drifting off, use whatever it is that you’re doing as your meditation focus, trying to concentrate on just that and not thinking about something else.
Whenever you’re waiting for something and feeling impatient. Instead of digging up your phone or looking for some other distraction, take the opportunity to practice meditation (with your eyes open, if need be) and neutrally observe the impatience until it goes away. Public transit is great for this - I get a lot of meditation practice done while waiting for or riding a bus.
Whenever you feel any negative sensation at all! If you for any reason feel bad, you have the option of turning that negative feeling into a meditation focus and watching and studying it until it stops feeling bad. (Possibly the hardest part is in remembering that this option exists.) I have used mindfulness practice to attack feelings of irritation or impatience when talking with people, urges to keep checking my Facebook/e-mail/IRC/Google+ every five minutes, and a reluctance to do something that I should be doing. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it can make you feel a lot better and be a great akrasia-killer. A week back I managed to conquer my nervousness and ask a total stranger in a café on a date, and I have a strong suspicion that I wouldn’t have been able to do that without mindfulness practice. (She was already taken, but very flattered that I asked.)
I’m still a beginner when it comes to meditation, having only done regular practice for about two months, and sporadic and irregular practice for a year. On a lot of days, my attention keeps wandering during my sit, and for the rest of the day I feel just as emotional and easily distracted as always. But on there are also times (like today) when the whole day feels like one long extended session of mindfulness practice. Whenever I’m doing anything that doesn’t require thought, I focus on my breath and on my body, and start to feel increasingly good as a consequence. Whenever I am doing something that does require thought, I use mindfulness as a way to keep my thoughts on that topic and not perform worse because I keep thinking about something else. Each feeling of discomfort becomes something to be celebrated, because it gives me a chance to practice my skills further—aha, I don’t feel like doing X! Now I can do X and focus on that feeling of not wanting to do it, and see if it goes away! Bummer, now it did go away, I’ll have to find something else useful that I wouldn’t want to be doing after I finish with X! It becomes difficult for anything to make me feel bad, when sensations of something feeling unpleasant turn into something that I actively hunt after and am glad to find—and when I do find them, they rapidly stop feeling unpleasant.
Like I said, most days don’t feel like this. Like anything that involves learning and internalizing new ways of thinking, it’s a two-steps-forward, one-step-back, four-steps-forward, seven-steps-back, three-steps-forward, half-a-step-back kind of process. But I think those kinds of days are slowly becoming more common, and when I do have one of those days, it’s awesome.
(I’ve posted about some theories of how/why meditation works here and here.)
Headaches work for me. There are also some types of strong negative emotions which improve my meditation enormously, while others prevent meditation from working.