Four Tips for Establishing a Meditation Practice
Even if the house is burning down!
I first learned meditation on a summer day of 1976 in Lincoln, Nebraska. I caught cold immediately, but it was not a normal cold. I could feel that it was my body trying to catch up with the life changing experience going on in my mind.
At first I started doing meditation once a day for 10 or 15 minutes. After a year, my teacher told me I should meditate twice a day because doing meditation twice a day has more than twice the benefits of once a day. He said it was a synergistic affect. After he said this, I started to practice meditation twice a day. I have continued this practice every day, twice a day since 1977. That’s now almost 45 years! And for the last 37 years I have been a meditation teacher myself.
What do we mean by “practicing meditation”? It is kind of like when you learn to play the piano. You practice every day and you become a better piano player. You just keep at it and one day you realize that your fingers do what you want them to do automatically and the sound when your fingers tap the keys is actually good.
The same is true for meditation. When you practice meditation every day little by little it becomes easier to concentrate, easier to keep your back straight, and easier to sit still. Your mind stops racing. Your knees are less painful and your feet don´t fall asleep. You start to feel benefits. After meditation you feel peaceful inside. Your temper is easier to control. You start to feel more compassionate. You may have fewer fights with your partner. It becomes easier to relax.
Doing meditation every day is essential in establishing and maintaining the practice.
Believe it or not, the technique for doing meditation is not difficult. The most difficult part is establishing the routine. After doing that, meditation becomes part of your life and you feel you are missing something if you skip doing meditation. I’d like to share four secrets with you that I have found along the way for establishing that routine.
1. Do meditation when you first wake up BEFORE doing other things. Before doing other things is important because when you start to do other things your mind already begins to get cluttered and it becomes harder to concentrate. Once you get caught up in the day’s events, later it is hard to stop the flow and find a quiet moment to sit down for meditation. “Before doing other things,” means doing meditation before looking at your phone messages, before looking at emails, before preparing breakfast or before doing whatever. Just go to the bathroom, wash your face and then sit for meditation. Period.
2. Do meditation every day no matter what. This means do meditation even if: you are sick, your spouse/partner is sick, you are depressed, you don’t have time, you are already late for work, you are fighting with your spouse/partner, you are on vacation, you are stressed, or the house is burning down. Especially when you first start to do meditation your mind may make up these and other excuses for not doing meditation. The routine is very important. Once you break the routine, even for a day or two it becomes a challenge to pick it up again.
3. Try to do meditation for 15 minutes. However, if you don´t have 15 minutes 10 will do. If you do not have 10, 5 minutes will be quite OK. Then if you even don’t have 5 minutes, just sit for 1 minute. It is important to establish and maintain the discipline of the practice. Let me say again — establishing the practice is much more difficult to do than doing the actual meditation. Doing meditation every day is essential in establishing and maintaining the practice.
4. Don’t judge yourself or the quality of your meditation. When I first started doing meditation, I didn´t really know if I was meditating because I thought I was supposed to “feel” something. One day I was discussing my doubts with one of my hippie friends who had also just started doing meditation. He told me that his teacher had told him, “If you are repeating the mantra, you are doing meditation.” It’s that simple. Just follow the technique you have been taught. If you have questions about the specific technique, ask your teacher. Otherwise just practice the technique and the benefits will come. Little by little you will catch glimpses of the serenity and peace that meditation is famous for bringing.
There are tons of reasons for doing meditation and it has so many good effects. In the time that has lapsed from my hippie days until today, meditation has become mainstream. A Google search will show you many well documented benefits to the practice. On a personal level, I do meditation because it makes my life better and richer. To establish a personal practice like mine, I recommend four things: Meditation first thing in the morning. Meditation everyday no matter what. Five minutes will do. And don´t judge yourself! Good luck!
Would you like to hear more about my personal journey?
Thanks for reading, Didi Ananda Muktivrata
