Routine is Everything
So let’s get back to basics.
Essentially, meditation is no big deal. The problem is, people keep making it into a big deal – investing all kinds of significance into a skill which, ironically, can only come to life if it is kept simple.
In particular, there’s a preoccupation with the ‘experience’ of meditation and what it all means – which leads to people being precious about how they practice, and where they practice – to ‘get the experience’ they think they should be having – the bliss, the buzz, the feeling of being ‘at one with the universe’ whatever.
The irony is, it’s precisely this ‘loading on’ of extraneous significance that makes the practice of meditating so fraught with the possibility of failure.
A woman once asked me what was the best environment for her to create in her house, so she could meditate ‘properly’ – whether she should use candles and incense, or whether the room should be totally dark – and whether she should use ear-plugs to keep out disturbing noise. She got very upset when I suggested that these things were just subtle forms of procrastination, and that she should just do it – do it wherever she liked, but just do it. Every day.
As I’ve said many times on this blog, (and it gets up the nose of quite a few meditators), the experience you have during meditation, for better or worse, is absolutely unimportant. Whether you find a mess of pain and daydreams, or such a state of heavenly bliss that you forget you exist – it doesn’t matter. Each is as insignificant as the other, and should be let go of.
I’m not saying you should stop the experience, whatever it is – I’m just saying don’t cling to it. Whatever is happening, be aware of it, but remain detached by returning your attention to the breath.
The bottom line of meditation is to just learn how to be still, no matter where you are, and no matter what is happening. This skill of being still in mind and body as you meditate, causes inner stillness to gradually appear in your life – which is where you need it. And why meditation is so useful.
And the only way you can be still as you meditate is to practice letting go of everything – of all the things you usually pay attention to. Everything, that is, except the breath. Because the breath is the ‘safe place’ where we can rest our attention when it’s let go of everything else. After all, if we leave the attention floating in the midst of all its usual toys – daydreams, reactions, worries and so on – it’ll be impossible to keep it from sticking to one or other of them. So we use the breath as a place to put our attention, where it can learn that it doesn’t have to be constantly generating mental activity – where it can be still.
But here’s my main point.
By far the most important factor, when using meditation to build these mental skills and habits, is practice.
And practice thrives with routine.
Meaning, do it every day.
I think I wrote an earlier post about this, but I’ll reiterate.
I meditate every day – sometimes twice a day, and sometimes three times a day if I feel like it – but I always meditate at least once a day. The first meditation is the most important. I’ve got a routine – I get out of bed and put the kettle on to make green tea. Then I stretch and do ten minutes of exercise. Then I leave the tea to brew while I meditate.
For how long do I meditate? Well, ideally, for thirty or forty minutes. But if I’m pressed for time, I’ll do twenty minutes. And if I have to get out the door as soon as possible, I’ll meditate for fifteen minutes, or even ten. The most important thing is to touch base with meditation – like watering a plant to keep it alive.
The other thing is, I always use a timer – an app on my mobile phone. There’s heaps of them available for download. A timer is essential, simply so you don’t have to think about time as you meditate. You decide how much time you’ll practice for, then set the timer and do it. The amount of time you meditate is not as important as the regularity. As I said, each day you’re kind of touching base, to remind the mind and body to let go of things they might still be clinging to from recent days. The mind and body respond to routine. Like a pet dog, they’ll be there waiting with their tail wagging, keen to go.
The other thing is, don’t be precious about the environment where you do it. You can meditate anywhere, whether an airport (my fave), a train or waiting in a queue. No need to be cross-legged in a dimmed room – just fix your gaze on an empty space, bring your attention to the breath and begin. Where you meditate is not as important as when – and in this, as I said, the first meditation of the day is the most important. Whatever you consider to be a distraction, whether it’s a ticking clock, a flapping blind or raging freeway traffic – it’s all good. Aggravating distractions help you build on the skill of letting go.
So, aside from being central to our capacity to be still as we meditate, why is the ability to let go so important that we should build it into our sense of self as a life habit? Well, if we look at almost everything that causes us problems in our life, we see that in some way, it’s arisen from not being able to let go.
Let’s list a few:
• The argument which becomes a mindless fight because we cannot let go of our pride and position.
• The crushing disappointment when something doesn’t happen the way we envisioned because we couldn’t let go of desiring a particular outcome.
• The pain of losing a possession because we clung to it as a part of our self-definition.
• The depression that persists because we’re clinging to the wish that we weren’t depressed.
• The anxiety that gets worse because we’re panicking about being anxious.
So much of what hurts us arises because we can’t let go of things which, in the cut and thrust of ever-changing life, have changed, been lost or which are not to our liking. When we get stuck in this way, if we can’t let go and flow with natural change, we will suffer.
I’ll leave you with something the great Zen teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote in his book ‘The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation’: “Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything—anger, anxiety, or possessions – we cannot be free.”
…………………………………………………………………………………….
Roger’s book, ‘BEING STILL – MEDITATION THAT MAKES SENSE’ is available now. Just click on the links below:
AUDIOBOOK (including ebook & MP3 exercises) – AUD $25.00
…………………………………………………………………………………
