+1 vote
by (130 points)
I was kind of false-confident that my meditation practice is an ultimate meditation that is needed for me. And I don’t need anything else, at least for now.

But just yesterday I came to realize that it is not so, turns our you can train you mind for different purposes. Kind of like you train the rest of your body. If you wan’t to run fast, you run fast everyday. If you wan’t lift heavy things you need to lift every day, if you wan’t to pull you pull everyday, if you wan’t to push you push every day. It’s pretty simple to understand when you have analogy like this.

I’m not saying that what I was practicing is not useful, it is, but it is not the best practice for my main challenge. I believe my main goal at the moment is to improve my concentration ability. To be able to concentrate on things that are not that fun to do, without having a strong motivation to do so. I just wan’t to be able to do tedious tasks without putting too much effort in coming up with reasons why I need to do it. Because having these reasons might be good to start the work, but it does not help with sustaining a good paste.

So what I was doing wrong?

 I was training my mind to relax, detach from raising desires, discomforts and thoughts and observe surrounding without judging (even with closed eyes), let go and dissolve in experience of now, letting go of any thought that I have as soon as they raise. I think I become pretty good at it, I can really sounder and accept an experience of discomfort. For example I can immerse myself in to cold lake in winter and let go shaking and resistance, just accept that coldness and be inside as long I planned to be. So, even though it’s really empowering, the problems that I try to solve in my life, is in a bit different dimension.

The practice that I was doing helps me to no wary about problems in my life, it does not help me to take actions and focus on resolving them, and I think this is wha’t I really need to practice. I think even opposite, my practice helps me to ignore problems in my life without taking actions (concentrating on resolving problems). It really helps a lot in switching from one task to another (that I appreciate), in practice it helps to not cary emotions from my work to family, for example. But, eventually, I let thing to go too far to the state when it’s not possible to ignore it anymore, things pile up, and suffers everyone. Me, my team at the work as we are not getting to our goals as we planned, and my family because they a loosing me for period when I’m catching up. I’m not even saying about the level of stress that persists during that time in me, which might also not be very healthy. But this is how I operate since my childhood, I believe.

And I think this is my challenge in life to overcome this. To be able to priorities thing and do do them effortlessly when time comes. Kind of being proactive, I guess. It seems like my practice was kind of if you compare lifting a weight everyday to prepare for maraphone run . It is just wrong type of training for me.

What I actually need?

So, even though I would always start my meditation from concentration on breathing, I would slowly transform in letting everything go and occasionally come back to my breathing. But what I actually need is practice concentration.

I’m really bad at focusing for long time. I can see it clearly, it’s very easy to distract me from my work or anything really.

So now, I think, I’m going focus my awareness on how does my meditation practice aligns with my overall needs in life. I’m going to try to focus on breathing for as long time as I can. I mean, not forcing anything, and when noticing my attention diverged gently bringing it up to breathing.

I’d really wan’t to have some input on this from experienced practitioners. I want to make sure I'm not assuming things that have no connection with reality.
by (130 points)
Yeah, I'm surprised I did not read it until now. Have heard of it so many times.

1 Answer

0 votes
by (18.8k points)

Have you read Bhante's booklet? It has everything you need to get a good start in Satipatthana. Take refuge in the Triple Gem. Surrender your ego to the advice of the teacher and start practicing if you are interested in attaining the best of what Buddhism has to offer. 

by (130 points)
Yeah, I'm surprised I did not read it until now. Have heard of it so many times.
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