The Milkmaid (ca. 1660) by Johannes Vermeer. Original from The Rijksmuseum.

Dear friends,

I am often asked why is meditation so hard? Despite the utter simplicity of the practice itself, why is it so difficult to consistently sit down and meditate?

One of the best answers I know comes from Diana Winston, who is the Director of Mindfulness Education at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center. She is also a mom to her three year old daughter, as well as the author of the wonderful book- The Little Book of Being, among others.

It’s hard because meditation is the opposite of how we’ve been culturally conditioned.

It’s hard because it’s not necessarily yet a habit. Habits come easily, we just do them. New habits take work.

It’s hard because sometimes meditation can feel excruciatingly boring. Our lives are far more entertaining than knowing if a breath is long or short.

It’s hard because there are seemingly far more interesting and necessary things to do. We could watch TV, work out, write poetry, scrub the grout from our showers…

It’s hard because our brains are wired to be stimulated and it takes a tremendous effort to overcome our addiction to stimulation.

It’s hard because sometimes, we are going through intense emotions that we don’t want to feel, and nothing short of restraints are going to make us sit there and feel that grief. No, nothing! Sometimes the thought of meditating makes us gag. Especially when we’re having a difficult time in life. Yet paradoxically, that’s the best time to meditate. It’s when we need it the most.

We have been practicing the opposite for many years of what we intend with meditation, it’s no wonder we get so easily frustrated and give up.

Meditation asks us to take a step back from how we experience our everyday life, and observe how this life unfolds in real time– moment to moment. While drinking our morning coffee, rather than experiencing the taste of the coffee and the warmth of the mug in our hands, we may be troubleshooting imagined problems at work, or re-living past events– often with revisionist touches.

Or am I the only one who “slightly” rewrites in my head the plot lines of certain failures and other insults?

Meditation invites us to take a seat in a new relationship with experience; to shift from planning, self-congratulation or regret to touching, tasting, hearing, seeing, feeling. From a made up world to the real world as presented by raw sensory impressions, moment by moment.

We are no longer really “doing” anything. It’s like we are eavesdropping on ourselves as experiences unfold. This shift from doing, comparing, judging, thinking, thinking, thinking into just observing is like applying the brakes as we approach a stop sign.

Only many of us just roll right through.

And this shift from doing to listening in allows us to see how we are contributing to our own malaise, moment by moment. I love Rumi’s line here:

Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.

But we get restless and anxious. We are not used to just breathing because, as Diana writes, it's the opposite of how we’ve been culturally conditioned. This thing just takes patience. There is no way around it. Ralph Waldo Emerson reminds us:

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

And just look at what She has done with near infinite patience! We just need a sliver of that.

Don’t think about this too much. The task of noticing what is happening in real time, and allowing that knowledge to get successively deeper and wider, carries the mind toward less and less discomfort and regret. Just like that.

We all feel annoyed, frustrated and tired at times. But we discover, as Rumi points out, that as we stop weaving the threads of our own despair and boredom, the pattern improves.

Life unfolds, and we will meet it simply and clearly. A mind like this lives quite peacefully amidst changing and not-very-controllable circumstances.

I am continually amazed at the wonderful fruit of our simple practice of sitting on a cushion and tuning into our real-time lived experience, and tuning out the radio noise of the ego. The mind re-shapes itself into an instrument that is more harmonized with the flow of life.

Contentment follows. It’s so simple.

I love this observation by the American Catholic Benedictine monk, author Brother David Steindl-Rast, OSB:

A lifetime may not be long enough to attune ourselves fully to the harmony of the universe. But just to become aware that we can resonate with it – that alone can be like waking up from a dream.

Just sitting, breathing and tuning in.

Radio noise? Static? Boredom?

No problem, just sit, breathe and tune in. Rinse and repeat.

And happiness follows “as surely as one’s shadow.”

Wishing you peaceful sanity in this crazy world,

tom

What do sad people have in common?

It seems they have all built a shrine to the past, And often they go there and do a strange wail and worship.

What is the beginning of happiness?

It is to stop

being so religious

Like

That.

Hafez Shams-ud-Dīn Muhammad Shirazi was born in 1326 in the Persian city of Shiraz, Iran. A follower of the words of Rumi, his influence lives on as the most popular poet in Iran.

1. Be gentle on yourself. If you think you’re a failure and berate yourself for missing a day or a week, meditation then becomes another excuse for self-hatred. Look, meditation training is like swimming upstream, doable, but takes some effort. Be forgiving, yet keep at it.
2. Allow it to become a habit. Try to do it at the same time in the same place everyday. The way to cultivate a habit is to actually do it. The more consistent you can be, the easier it is for the new grooves to be worn into your brain.
3. Review your day and pick a time to do it that makes sense. If you are not a morning person, in fact can’t even look at yourself in the mirror until after you’ve had your coffee, wait till later in the day. If you come home exhausted every night, try the mornings.
4. Be willing to be flexible. If you miss your morning session, be creative. Take a mindful, silent walk at work; sit before you fall asleep. Don’t throw in the towel just because your daily routine got upended.
5. Prioritize. You need to somehow insert into your brain that meditation is just as important as brushing your teeth, showering, eating, Friends reruns, whatever it is. I think it’s amazing how much time we find to answer email but how strikingly little time there is to sit daily. Hmmmm.
6. Set your intention. Ask yourself as you sit down, why am I meditating today? See what emerges. Then ask yourself, what are my deepest reasons for practice? Return to these motivations when the going gets tough. A liberated mind takes work and reminders.
7. Pick a doable amount of time. Don’t strive for an hour unless it seems easy to you. Twenty minutes to a half hour can work fine. Up it, if that seems easy and fits in with your schedule. Even five minutes will activate those neural pathways, keep it going. And get a new groove forming.
8. If all else fails, get your sweet self on your cushion and take three breaths.
9. Sometimes sitting truly feels impossible. Then use your designated time for some kind of spiritually supportive practice: read a dharma book, listen to a tape, write in your journal.
10. When you screw up, be gentle on yourself. I already said this, but I’ll say it again, it’s key for developing a regular practice.
    

-->> Looking for a good book? Check out our Suggested Reading page.

-->> Want to start, or re-start your meditation practice? Here is an excellent free getting started with mindfulness online resource.

This weekly newsletter offers the stray thoughts of a lazy meditator and student of Early Buddhism, nothing more. Authoritative teachings are on our resources page. Did a friend send you this and want to sign up? Easy sign up here.