Missoula counselors often hear from people who have decided to go down this road of life:
“Now that we have started meditating, how do we keep it up?”
This is the difficult part.
A wise friend of mine once said, “meditation gives us much that we don’t want. And it doesn’t always give us what we want. Seeing this, most people give up.”
What does this mean? First, meditation shows us things we might not want to see.
Bodily Discomforts
Consider our bodies. We work hard to find comfort in everything we do in life. But meditation requires sitting still. And even in the most comfortable chair, this stillness becomes uncomfortable.
Do we sit through the discomfort? Do we shift a little? Or do we end our meditation early to do something else?
Ideally, we sit through discomforts in meditation. In fact, we can examine them in the moment. What is this tingling in my lower back? How exactly does the ache in my knee feel? Keep in mind that we’re not masochists and extreme pain should be avoided.
But minor pains, tickles, aches, etc. can be accepted. If we watch them, they often just go away. We sit through them.
This translates to so much of life. How often do we immediately go to the refrigerator, or worse, the junk food drawer, when we feel hungry? Can we sit through some hunger and continue our work or a conversation with a friend? With some practice, we build willpower. This willpower will help us push through work assignments, go longer at the gym, and any other time in life that we need to stay on track despite distractions and diversions.
Being gentle with our bodies
When we’re starting meditation, we don’t need to jump into the full lotus position with our legs crossed and feet up on our thighs. I’ve meditated for over 20 years and was never able to hold this position.
An office chair is fine. Some people can even meditate laying down. But this is dangerous, as obviously this can lead to a nap instead of a meditation.
Just like a gym visit, working through some discomfort is essential. But pushing our bodies too hard can lead to an injury. One of my early teachers told me about a friend of his who had to have knee surgery in his 50s precisely because he had been over-zealous in his meditation, forcing his inflexible body into rigid meditation postures for decades.
Mental Discomforts
Mental discomforts will be much worse. These will be the thoughts telling you “this isn’t working” or “there are better things I could be doing with my time now.” “I’m no good at this,” or “this is dumb,” might pass through your mind.
What do we do when these thoughts come up? Watch them. Just like an itch on the back of our neck, they might linger for a moment or two. Or they might fade away into nothingness as we pleasantly watch the next in-breath and out-breath.
Our mental habits are powerful things. I grew up in rural Montana, where a fair number of roads could have deep ruts. In the spring and fall, these would be muddy and your car would just slip right into them, seemingly no matter what.
Our mind is like this. We develop certain habits that we slip into over and over again. And like a muddy road, every time we continue in that path, we dig it a little deeper, making it more likely we’ll fall into it again.
So it takes real effort to stay out of the mental ruts of our mind. But over time, by driving on the high part of the road, we wear that down and the ruts can disappear. Then our road is flat and we have freedom to be where we want.
Similarly, our mind might be highly conditioned to want certain things for comfort. And, in a safe way, we can take away those comforts. Meditation does this, even just for 2, 5, or 10 minutes at a time starting off. It is amazing how quickly the mind will want to slip back into a comfortable rut.
What does your mind say? As we meditate, we can note where our mind wants to go instead. TV? Food? A walk? Call a friend? Go back to work?
We breathe through all of it, knowing that we are learning more and more about how our mind works.
Be gentle with our minds
Just as we need to be kind to our bodies, especially starting out, we need to be kind to our minds. In part, this is why we start with just 2 or 5 minutes of meditation. It really is astonishing how difficult it can be to go beyond this.
And even with practice, really difficult things might come up. We might find ourselves in tears as we vividly remember a past break-up or we feel how badly we miss a lost relative.
Our body keeps the score of our lives, even when our minds avoid dealing with things. So when we meditate, our minds open up and sometimes encounter emotional wounds that have been stored in our bodies. If these are really heavy, take a break. Be with the emotions as much as possible, but know that you don’t need to force it all out at once.
It’ll still be there when we come back.
A Buddhist story
In one Buddhist story, the Buddha encounters a monk who is so intent on his walking meditation that he is bleeding yet keeps on walking. Knowing that the man was a musician in his youth, the Buddha asks about the quality of sound from an instrument whose strings are too tight. “It does not make harmonious music,” says the monk.
And when the strings are too loose? “It does not make good music,” says the monk.
“So it is in meditation,” said the Buddha. “When we strain our mind or body too tight, it does not lead to harmonious practice.”
As any musician knows, this can be tricky. It takes time to learn how to precisely tune an instrument, let alone your mind. But with guidance, good friends to encourage us, and patience, we can find harmony.
Justin Whitaker, Ph.D., holds a doctorate in Buddhist ethics from the University of London. He has given lectures, and taught Buddhist studies and Philosophy at Oxford University, the University of Hong Kong, the University of Montana, and at Antioch University’s intensive study-abroad program in India. A certified meditation teacher, he is a regular contributor to Patheos.com, and Senior Correspondent for Buddhistdoor Global. He lives in Missoula with his family.