meditate daily

It seems to have flown, but I actually completed it. Even if there are no obvious benefits to my having sat down every evening and meditated quietly on my mantra for 20 minutes, I think it’s instilled me with better discipline and follow-through, and I’m not normally someone who finishes everything they start.

Maybe now I’ll even try a mantra siddhi! (Well, maybe much, much later…)

I meditate every day now in the same place for about 20-30 minutes, and it’s really become ingrained into my daily routine. I intend to meditate daily, even if I have only a few minutes to spare a day. It used to be (and still is, at times) really difficult to try and empty the mind, because the rest of the house can be really noisy, doors banging and TV blaring, but I’m learning to shut that out. Hopefully for good. How useful would that be! :)

I’m going to start keeping a meditation/spiritual diary to go with this goal. Just a journal to jot down some of my thoughts after or during my periods of relaxation. I remember having moments of surprising clarity during meditation sessions and never having the notion of writing down what I’m thinking. Maybe I may even spot a pattern after a while, which would be great for looking back over if I’m getting better at meditation in the future.

Second nature to me now. I can’t see myself starting and/or ending the day without sitting down quietly and just trying to clear my mind. I love how it’s become part of my daily life. I will continue to endeavour keeping this up for as long as I can. I love it.

I’m not finding it so hard to sit still anymore. I started meditating last year, and I thought it was something of a challenge at first. My mind would just wander, and worst of all – I worried constantly about the time. Every session would have me looking at my watch every five minutes, to see if I wasn’t wasting time. Basically, I was missing the whole point of sitting down to clear my mind.

I think I may be getting better at it. At least, I’m not being so uptight about it anymore. I got rid of my watch and refused to look at the clock. And it just went – really well, there’s no other word to describe it. I felt so relaxed afterwards, and to my surprise it turned out I had been meditating for well over an hour and a half (that’s a record).

I really want to continue like this. To meditate to the point that time has no meaning in the sense that I don’t have to rush off to be somewhere or do something. This is enough.

As much as I tried to concentrate, or rather – the reverse of it! – I found I had too much on my mind to fully meditate properly. Unfortunately, it began to get noisy in my neighbourhood where I live which did not really help at all. I guess sometimes, you can’t let yourself go, and trying really hard only seems to make it worse…

I really looked forward to the end of the day when I can play soothing music, light a few candles and incense and try to let my mind free. I almost forgot what a joy it was to meditate, and not to worry (although I’m only still a novice, in terms of experience). A mantra seems to definitely focus my mind on something so it doesn’t wander.

I used to meditate a least once or twice a day whenever I had spare time, but lately I’ve just had so much to do that’s it’s hard to find time for it. The terrible thing about this is, with meditation you need to STOP worrying about timekeeping, or else you won’t ever clear your mind. That’s really the problem I’m having, I think.