meditate daily

Today will be day 201, counting from Feb 25th. There have been challenges, not the least of which is that I still don’t have a routine down for when I sit. Actually, I think I have two routines. 1. I sit in the morning before work and 2. I squeeze it in last minute before bed. Guess which happens more frequently?

What sort of annoys me is that even on weekends and vacation, I still frequently squeeze in the 10-20 minute sit right before bed.

My discipline is so undisciplined.

Still, despite having considered giving this up as silly and far too goal directed, I have sat everyday, no matter what. Actually, a big part of the “no matter what” is the nagging thought that this is silly and too goal directed. Also, of course, a long list of other life thingies. Sick. Tired. Busy. Drunk. Healthy. Bored. Out of Town. Camping. Combinations of the above.

My brother has saved the day a number of times, including Tired/Drunk/Camping where I crawled into my tent and fell asleep to be re-woken by him with “did you sit?” I sat up and meditated half asleep in the dark in my tent.

It is also helpful that a friend of mine said I was an inspiration and it re-ignited her own practice. How can I quit because I’m a lazy sleepyhead when somebody called me inspiring?

I hope others of you with this goal are finding your practice rewarding and enriching. May you be calm, happy and peaceful and overcome all obstacles with confidence and gentleness.

It is still before noon. I think I’ll go sit. How about you?

I started a new job last year, Feb 11th. Doing so really made it challenging to meditate regularly since when working from home, my pattern was to sit after a few hours of work and then return to work. This is easy when working from home.

When going to an office, doing anything in the mornings before work or in the evenings after work is challenging for me. I still sat, but my goal is to sit daily.

I kept thinking about that metaphor about how brushing one’s teeth twice a day for 2 min is much better than brushing one’s teeth once a week for an hour.

On Shambhala Day this year, Feb 25th, I made a vow to sit everyday for the next year NO MATTER WHAT. I actually started a couple weeks before that to make sure I started with some momentum. To make it so that I could realistically do this when sick, or on vacation, or experiencing some kind of personal trauma, I set the minimum time low: 10 minutes.

This week I’ll make 100 days in a row of sitting for a minimum of 10 minutes. This last month, my set time has been 20 min, and I only reserve 10 min for when it is really difficult (super tired, extremely busy, out of town, sick… etc.).

How’s everyone else in the team doing?

I have allowed other interests, goals, laziness and bad mood to keep me from sitting lately. I think this has increased my laziness and bad moods which have prevented me from sitting which have increased my bad moods. It has to end.

The 1st is a good day to start over. Fresh start.

Everyday. Here we go.

I have been trying to sit twice a day for 45 min each. The goal was to do so once before 1 pm and once before bed. Anytime during those intervals. This has not worked out.

I told myself I’d be happy if I sat one 45 min session a day, and even that I’m not quite hitting. I’ll sit for 15 or 30 and then have to do something. I end up sitting the 45 about 3 days out of the week and some portion thereof for the other 4 days.

Also, joining a gym is great, and I am not complaining, but it’s going to make daily sitting harder, particularly in a long single stretch.

Therefore, I’m going to try something new. Every Saturday for the next month I’m going to set my watch timer to 7 hours. When I sit, I’ll click the watch, when I get up, I’ll stop the watch. By the next Saturday, I will have sat for the 7 hours, in bits and pieces, here and there, 5 min, 15 min, 30 min, 1 hour, 2 hours, whatever it takes.

Every time I pass my zafu and can sit for 5 or 10, I’ll do it. If I get to the next Saturday and my watch still has hours left, well, guess what I’m doing Saturday.

I think this will be better anyway, more, smaller practice sessions.

We’ll see.

I went to a series of dharma talks on the bodhisattva path before which there was sitting and walking meditation. I’ve been sitting for a while, but I’d never done walking meditation. Now I’ve done it 5 times in a group of 20 or 25 people.

It’s very interesting, but one thing, each time, at least once, I’ve nearly fallen over. I don’t usually fall over when walking, but something about paying such attention to the way the feet and legs are moving just makes me lose my balance. The last time I made it worse by finding my own loss of balance really funny and after nearly falling over, totally snorting and wheeze-giggling.

If you can’t be silly in a group of buddhists, then seriously, where can you be silly?

I’m somewhere around my year anniversary for my attempt at daily meditation. I don’t know exactly when I started, but it’s close enough to a year for me to note it.

After nearly a year of sitting on various pillows, I ordered a real zafu . It arrived yesterday. I have clocked only an hour on it, but I’m very pleased and am trying not to regret not having gotten one earlier. On the other hand, it was a $ splurge, so it’s good that I know it won’t end up unused. After a year, sitting is just something that I do.

One of the best things I came accross this year was Shambhala. In this tradition, the shamatha/vipassana meditation is done with the eyes open. I was having a couple obstacles, sleepiness and cinematic fantasy stories, both of which disappeared when I started meditating with my eyes half open.

I don’t think I’ve posted an entry since I was invited to this team—so, I guess I’ll ask a question while I’m at it. Since definitions of “meditation” vary wildly, I’m wondering how many of you do a traditional sitting meditation and if so, what tradition?

30 min, 5 days a week.

Today was images of old friends day. Thoughts arose of people I knew in High School and College. I got images of friends who’s last names I couldn’t remember. I thought of the last times I saw them and I wondered what we said and what we would have said if we had known it’d be the last time.

I watched all this, noted it, let it pass and went back to my breath. I am trying to remember that this is meditation—remember to observe the thoughts without trying to suppress them. I try not to feel like I’m just not concentrating properly.

I’m not managing to sit every day. When I added this goal, I re-read Mindfulness in Plain English (Gunaratana) and started with 10 min sits. Last month I switched to 20 min. I have been able to sit 2 out of 3 days, with weekends being the hardest.