Why We Don't Meditate

Time, life, family, social, sporting, education, the list could go on and on, add on top of that the 'good meditators' telling you how amazing it is, which is far from your experience of it so far, maybe you had glimpses, but you definitely wouldn't say that you found your self pleasantly rewarded instantly for the time invested. As always I would love your feedback. Why did you stop in the past?

Transcript

Like I said,

Two parts,

Make sure you listen all the way to the end and the next one will make even more sense.

Thank you so much.

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And see if we can notice the sensations in our body.

Maybe the mind's telling you,

In fact,

Let's just forget about it today,

Let's start tomorrow.

There's a million things that keep you in your current routine.

Although this morning,

You know something has to change.

So you get up out of bed and manage to somehow find the one piece of Lego that your kids manage to leave perfectly next to your bed somehow.

It's almost like they awake during the night or wake up during the night and find a way to test your mindfulness by leaving a piece of Lego for your foot to find.

Then you're searching around for your tracky-dackies,

Your tracksuit pants,

And your zafu,

And you're sort of saying to yourself,

God,

I've got my buddy left here.

What did I do?

Where did I put it?

Who's bloody moved these things?

And the next thing you know,

Your partner's woken up and she's telling you,

What the hell are you doing?

You're just trying to find my tracky-dackies,

Darling.

And you're saying,

I'm sorry,

Sweetie,

You're back to sleep.

Apologies,

I'm up early.

I just need to do some meditation.

Usually you find your zafu and you get some pants to sit in and you sit down wherever it is.

I like to do mine at the end of the bed.

And then as you sit down comfortably,

You're just getting into it.

And then the dog comes over and starts moaning at you about wanting out for a wee.

And you go and let them outside,

Trying to be as quiet as you can,

And you get back onto your zafu again.

And then that's it.

This is your time now.

Nothing else.

All is done.

And you sit down for what,

Maybe in five minutes,

But really feels like a moment.

And you hear in the background,

Dad.

And you look down,

You look at your phone,

It's 10 past five.

And you think,

If I don't answer,

Maybe they'll go back to sleep.

And as you sort of rest again,

There's a bit of silence.

You close your eyes thinking,

Oh,

Awesome.

They've dropped back off again.

And then you hear the pitter patter of little feet to be met in front of you with a wide-eyed little lady asking you for eggs.

And so that's you up.

Maybe tomorrow we try again,

Although we often feel quite frustrated and down because we couldn't even get some time for this practice.

And then this egoic side of ours takes over and reminds you that you never stick to things.

And because you're a little bit tired and a little bit down because you didn't do any practice this morning,

You begin to believe the ego's web of lives,

That you're useless,

Whatever it is that it keeps reminding you of,

These lies that it tells you.

Does this sound familiar in any way to you?

I bet it does.

It definitely sounds very familiar to me.

Now we have the best intentions,

But life just seems to rise up in these moments and remind us just how busy we are,

How life is just busy.

And we're in the midst of that busyness.

And even if you don't have a family,

Having delivered beginner's mindfulness courses to over four or five thousand people now,

It's tough to find the time to practice.

And it's a lot of the reason why we just end up giving up.

It's why we say that it's so hard to meditate.

The meditating is easy,

Really.

I mean,

It's not easy,

But it's the easy part of it.

Let's just be honest.

We're sitting down,

Putting headphones on for 10 minutes.

That's not incredibly difficult.

Sometimes we can do it lying down.

You know,

We do it on a couch.

That's not the hard part.

It's the getting the mind ready and prepared for it without the overwhelming feeling of guilt and busyness because of the busyness.

You know,

We've become A-level students,

Professors at being busy.

Even if a lot of that busyness is really procrastinating or ruminating in our own minds,

We don't give ourselves much time for leisure these days.

We spend a lot of that leisure time really just thinking about work or things that we need to do.

The old Blackberries ruined any sort of home time,

Being able to access our emails 24-7,

Which is useful.

Let's be honest.

I mean,

As a small business owner,

It can be incredibly useful.

So I know there's some people out there that are single parents too,

Or at the moment they're at home looking after family due to the Covid crisis,

Or some people working day or night just to make ends meet.

Actually,

It's an interesting saying that,

Make ends meet.

You know,

The make ends meet.

The true definition of Samsara and our rebirth is forever chasing our tail.

It's depicted as that sort of snake that eats the tail of the snake and it's like the continual rebirth in Samsara.

So it's just an interesting saying that,

Make ends meet.

We're forever chasing our tail.

We're busy people comparing ourselves to busy people and we feel guilty when we're not busy.

But we're busy doing anything other than working on ourselves.

We also have marketing companies dedicated to making us feel lack,

Making us compare,

Telling you what you need to be faster or fitter,

More beautiful,

Better partner,

Better parent,

Better brother,

Better sister,

Better friend.

Whatever it is,

We get sucked into.

So why is it hard to meditate?

We have a busy mind.

It is a problem solving metaphorical machine that's been left to its own devices and when we eventually stop and breathe it's whirring with the things we need to do.

And we're also so forgetful.

Particularly when we're stressed,

Particularly when we're busy.

We always have the best intentions but we just forget.

And then the worst thing is we berate ourselves for forgetting,

Which really isn't a motivating tool in any way.

It's hard because often when we turn to the practice is when our life sucks.

When it's emotional.

So we turn to an app or turn to a YouTube video hoping for instant gratification of easing the pain and suffering that we're going through from whatever we're suffering with.

And meditation takes time and application,

Dedication,

Intention,

Motivation.

Which at the moment these are just not things that we're really taught to do.

We live in a society that needs to be fulfilled quickly or we move on.

The average YouTube video is 10 seconds.

That's the time that we spend on average per YouTube video.

Literally 10 seconds.

You know on websites it's even less.

Another interesting one,

We judge people within 7 seconds.

That is staggering.

Meditation is the opposite of what our society is breeding at the moment.

We just don't have the time to create new habits.

We're busy building our empire.

We need to be stimulated.

We need to feel something.

We want happiness fast.

And we think that things are going to make that happy.

Feel that void.

And again this is marketing has engrossed us in the more means better myth.

Our brain loves to be stimulated.

Just look how we teach our kids these days.

It's all about stimulation rooms.

Soft colorful padding that gets them interested in exploring bright lights,

Colors,

Sounds.

That is what has engaged the child's mind.

It's no different for us now.

We are a click bait culture.

This is a term I've used a couple of times.

It's a new one for me.

We are.

Hoping the next thing that we open is the answer to all of our worries.

And often some of the things I get is that meditation when done on your own is just boring.

Which is true.

It can be.

But for those that aren't trained properly or really dedicated to bringing together a fruitful practice.

I must admit it's more boring than watching the football or reality television if you're my wife.

But it's not really actually for me.

I absolutely love meditation in all honesty.

But it is more boring than ironing.

Although ironing was one of those informal practices that I grew to love through meditation.

Seeing the instant gratification of a nice warm clean fresh crisp t-shirt or whatever you're ironing.

So as you can see there's many ways and I hear daily as to why we shouldn't meditate or why we should stop.

And if any of these are sort of ringing true for you I promise you you aren't alone.

I'd love to hear your comments as well.

What you thought about it.

What are the things that keep you away from meditating.

I'd love your feedback.

Thank you so much for listening.

See you on the next audio.

Reviews

Captures the daily challenge so well. It helps to know many are in the same situation.