(Course) Beginner's Mind Day 7 - Excuses

Day 7 of Beginner's Mind by Mind Masons. In this talk, we will briefly cover common excuses given by meditators. Hopefully, hearing these discussed will help you to identify them, or similar excuses, when/if you try to fall back on them. Often times, knowing that something is just an excuse will help a person not used it themselves. Following this talk, you should practice using my 10 Minute Breath Counting meditation.

Transcript

That's okay but that's more of an obstacle once you start to learn or be shown what you're doing or what you're supposed to be doing. That's no longer valid or viable, It's just an excuse for the sake of an excuse at that point. Not being able to do it on your own is another common excuse and that is more common than you may think. A lot of folks have trouble with meditations that are unguided especially at first because kind of guiding and directing yourself can be challenging and intimidating and so a lot of people gravitate to guided meditation and a lot of people never progress past guided meditation and that is fine there's nothing wrong with that. There is a lot to be achieved and experienced and a lot of work to be done with and on yourself during a guided meditation. Admittedly some of my best meditations ever for my own personal practice have been guided by others and that's okay there's nothing wrong with that. So this idea that you can't do it on your own, No it's perfectly fine to be able or to need that guidance. Next we come to needing the perfect setup. This is a common one and unfortunately there is a burgeoning industry built around things like meditation. There's all sorts of little trinkets and instruments and books and this that and the other thing you can purchase that are supposed to enrich your meditation practice and the experiences and that's just it. They're meant to enrich the practice or be tools for it. You know for that matter if you have chosen to meditate in a chair and for some reason you go to meditate in your chair today and the chair is taken. Maybe there's a giant pile of laundry in it or maybe there's somebody else sitting in it. Well I would question do you need that chair specifically? You know do you need that specific cushion? Do you need that perfect setup or do you really like we said in the beginning just need a comfortable place to sit, A little bit of peace and quiet and the desire to practice. So if you're really attached to that perfect setup I would encourage you to look at that and discover for yourself what you truly actually need to be able to sit and meditate. Pain and discomfort and injuries and like I said earlier we're going to talk about pain and discomfort a lot because they are pervasive but if they happen to the point that they're becoming an excuse. Oh every time I sit I get pain in my hip or every time I sit my foot falls asleep or whatever. Well that is definitely 100% just an excuse and it's somebody just leaning on that as a crutch because as we covered on the distractions day if you let them come be and go oftentimes they just leave and they don't come back a lot of the time. So some self-examination if you find yourself using the pain or discomfort excuse it's definitely warranted. A little bit of introspection as to whether that's valid or not is definitely called for. The mind not calming down or monkey mind as I mentioned the other day. This is something that becomes a very common excuse people feel like they can't meditate because their mind never calms down it's just always washed with these thoughts and feelings etc etc blah blah. That's just a fact of reality folks. The brain is built to think and it's our resolve and our desire to quiet that and to become at peace with that. That is one of the only things that's going to lead to that peace. So it's extremely common that the mind feels a wash of thoughts and feelings constantly and in fact it's it's very common that once you start to build a meditation practice it can suddenly feel like your mind is more awash with thoughts and feelings than it ever was. You know oh now that I've started meditating I think about all these things and I get all these feelings and it's just non-stop and while that feels and seems to be true that is a perception thing and what it is is that before you started meditating you just didn't notice it. Like I said in the first day the brain is built the way the brain is built all of these things were happening before they were just happening unbeknownst to you. Now because you've begun to practice slowing down and noticing things as they come for what they are you've started to notice this just hockey sock of thoughts and feelings that it seems like it's constantly coming and going. Trust me when I say it was always there and it will slow down and you will become at peace with it. Really I'd like to close with just saying that the best overall remedy for any excuse is just perseverance. Recognizing an excuse as another attempt by the ego to maintain control and to stop you from achieving some of these more sublime states essentially because the ego doesn't want to die. It wants to retain its control. So recognizing these excuses and these reasons that are being put in your path for why you can't meditate or meditation doesn't work for you can sometimes be a really helpful tool in overcoming these excuses getting yourself onto the cushion and practicing that day and every day. As always thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy your practice today.