Hello,
Good day again and welcome to day 5 of A Beginner's Mind where we're going to quickly go over some common obstacles to meditating.
As always I hope that yesterday's information was useful for you and that you were able to carry something forward from it and I hope that your practice went well yesterday.
And maybe now knowing the steps of a typical sadhana it becomes a little bit easier and it flows a little bit better for you because there's maybe less confusion.
So obstacles,
Obstacles to meditation they are numerous and numerous,
Infinite and all we're going to cover today is some of the more common ones.
First and foremost right at the top of the list is actually sitting down and making the time to practice.
Now this can be a big problem for people.
It can be a legitimate obstacle and it can be an obstacle that's brought on by excuses and excuses can be so prolific that we actually have an entire day in this course dedicated to highlighting common excuses.
Or it can be the result of legitimate schedule issues,
An extremely busy life.
So sometimes knowing that that is an obstacle for lots of people can help and that is where planning comes into play and adaptability and rolling with things.
The second most common or prolific obstacles are pain and discomfort when meditating.
Now we'll talk about pain and discomfort specifically quite a bit throughout this course but today we're talking about pain and discomfort just in a kind of holistic sense in the obstacle that they present.
Wherein they can seem a lot more drastic than they actually are and they can present a big obstacle to people.
Whether you can't get into a meditative pose comfortably or you can't stay in a meditative pose or every time you do there's pain in your knee or pain in your back or discomfort in your shoulders or whatever.
Again just know that these are just obstacles.
There are ways around them.
You can get through it and together we will get through it.
Another common obstacle is preconceptions or past experiences of meditation and we talked about some of these preconceptions on day one when we talked about what is meditation.
So coming to a point where you can let go of some of those preconceptions and especially now by day five having experienced some of what meditation truly is hopefully you're beginning to understand that those preconceptions may not have been all that accurate and maybe you're already starting to let some of them go and that's great.
And likewise if you have past experiences with meditation good or bad those can represent obstacles because they create points for which people strive.
Either striving for or striving to get past or away from.
So I would encourage you there to let go of any past experiences.
Just let them go.
Let this practice,
Let these practices speak for what they are and just continue with the process,
This process.
There's also stigmas with meditating.
Lots and lots and lots of stigmas out there and we touched on a few of them on day one and again just like preconceptions and past experiences I hope that some of these practices have given you new fresh experiences and are allowing you to let some of those stigma go.
Meditation doesn't create those who are non-feeling,
Completely indifferent and oblivious to the world and they only dwell within their own mind.
It's actually quite the opposite by taking time to dwell within the mind and dwell in those more serene states you'll actually find that you become more aware of what's going on around you,
More aware of what's going on within and actually able to react much more proportionately and much more effectively to what goes on in your life.
Another big obstacle is not knowing where to start.
I don't think we need to say a lot about this because we have started,
We have begun.
You are off the ground,
You are running so you don't need to know where to start anymore because we've already started and we are starting.
So I would encourage you to again to stay with this and if you have others in your life who would like to meditate and don't know where to start,
Share your experiences with them,
Share with them just how easy it is to start,
Just how accessible it really is.
And kind of along the same lines of not knowing where to start comes somewhat of an intimidation factor and I think this is a natural human characteristic where when we are starting something new and there are those who are awesome at it or seem to be awesome at it,
It can be very intimidating when we are starting from nothing and there are folks that seem like they are way up here with it.
Meditation is very unique in that we are not trying to become a pro-athlete,
You know something that we may or may not have the aptitude for.
Meditation is very unique in that everyone has the aptitude to be a meditator.
Everybody can cultivate these skills and this patience and this peace and become a meditator.
And so I would encourage you to let that,
If you are still feeling intimidated by this or intimidated by the process,
To just let that go and recognize the fact that hopefully again as these last few days have begun to highlight that the ability to do this and the ability to cultivate some of these things that we are going for was within you all along.
All we are starting to do is practice and apply a little bit of discipline to that to unlock that from within you.
As always,
Thanks for listening and I hope you have a great practice today.
