Meditation Project: Doubt
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| The Hesitation Waltz by Rene Magritte |
Well, you knew it was coming, I expect. This week I was assailed with doubts about why I'm even meditating. This mostly came about because I was starting to really look at the difference between how I felt after practicing asana, which was almost always a lot better than before practicing, and how I felt after meditating, which was temporarily quieter with a quietness that quickly dissipated and definitely not with that same feeling of physical and mental well-being that I get from asana. One day I even felt angry because I talked that day a long-time yoga practitioner who can't practice asana any more and I could tell what a terrible loss it was for them, even though they have a long meditation practice.
Of course, my wish to start a meditating project had to do with other benefits I thought I might obtain: improved ability to focus, improved overall sense of equanimity in the present, building skills for maintaining equanimity as I age and asana isn't available or easily available to me, and brain strength benefits that are only visible via MRIs. But I am a bit disappointed not to be feeling any immediate benefits the way I do from asana.
And I also know from writing several books that any long project involves periods of doubts. So I'm going to keep practicing for the rest of year. Here's what happened this week.
Sunday, March 31, 2019
Practiced Legs Up the Wall pose with my mantra and worked on focus. That "staring" technique is definitely hard to maintain. That's probably the real experience of focus, however, rather than the mostly auto-pilot thing I've been doing.
Monday, April 1, 2019
Practiced after doing a good asana practice. I was very tired because I'd had insomnia the previous night, so I wanted to do as many supported inverted poses as possible and I spent a good 20 minutes in Legs Up the Wall pose and meditated again in that position. I worked again on focus, which was really challenging. I even tried more words to fill in some of the cracks, such as "peace." I intentionally leave pauses in my mantra and say it only on the exhalation because otherwise I find myself speeding up and breathing too quickly. I can't NOT pay attention to my breath, it seems. I don't know how other people do this.
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
Practiced sitting after asana practice. There was a lot of noises from people and other commotion so maybe that's way my meditating was just okay (learning to practice in non-quiet situations is, I know, part of learning to meditate). I'm still experimenting with not leaving so many pauses and gaps in my mantra recitation.
Wednesday, April 3, 2019
This is the day I felt angry about meditation because I had talked with the long-time yoga practitioner I mentioned above. Is everything people say about meditation actually true, I wondered. My own experience has been that the asana practice, which I have learned to fine tune to help me physically and emotionally, is so much more effective for me. But what if I one day get to the point, like my friend, when I can't practice asana. Will meditation help me then?
Thursday, April 4, 2019
I meditated after a good asana practice, which included some calming forward bends (which tend to be calming). I'm really starting to feel like asana is so much better for me. Why am I meditating? I felt like I was missing something important by not doing it. But am I?
Friday, April 5, 2019
I meditated for 15 minutes before my asana practice because I was running late. The first few minutes felt really nice—yes, I get to sit quietly. But then it was like being stuck in a rut. Here I am again, doing the same thing, and why, why, why?
Shanti, shanti, shanti.
by Nina Zolotow
Nina, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. I am a yoga teacher who has toyed with meditation off and on--I usually to Sharon Salzberg's challenge in February and then peter out after that. ;)
ReplyDeleteI have now been meditating every day since late January. Other than meditating daily, I have tried to let go of what that "should" look like. So far, I have been using apps/other guided meditations daily. I'm averaging about 10 minutes but sometimes only do 5 (and rarely longer than 10). In the past I have kept track of the length of my sessions, but now I'm just listing an "m" on the calendar each day.
Last time I had a streak of about 40 days before I started to have very similar doubts to yours above. Now I am just telling myself that it's worthwhile and doing it without really examining how it is "helping." I too get a more direct boost in mood and energy from my asana practice, but again, right now I guess I'm mostly doing it just to keep a habit...and to see where that might take me.
Hello Nina, I have followed and learned so much from your YFHA website and now am following your Delusiastic blog. Thank you for sharing your meditation experiences. After 70 years of life, asana practice has become more and more difficult for me and I find my focus shifting to developing a meditation practice. My path is different from yours but I so identify with the struggles. Tara Brach together with Jack Kornfield have a free Mindfulness Daily audio program through Soundstrue that you might be interested in checking out. I actually listen to a 10 minute segment before sleep so keep it separate from my sitting meditation. It's been an encouraging series. It is so interesting that this has been a week of doubt for you as my experience this week is similar. But then this has been my experience following your blogs for a long time. Again, thank you so much for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI have been doing the free Brach/Kornfield meditation program--it's great! I love the length (about 10m) and particularly enjoy Kornfield's sessions.
DeleteThanks for sharing your doubts about meditation. Interesting to hear you say that as a writer, you recall those "dreaded middle" spaces that can come with a long project of any kind. I find asana easier simply because I like to do something active, whether it's walking, kayaking, tidying, playing with a pet, or yoga. I never liked meditation because I thought I was my thought, and also, that my thinking was something others couldn't hurt. If I stopped thinking, what if I simply vanished? And how could I keep myself safe? After reading Pema Chodron's books and listening to her tapes these past five or six years, along with doing my daily yoga practice, I very slowly added a bit of meditation using Ani Pema's suggestions. I know yoga helps me because although I started it to remedy scoliosis and other injuries (from being so active!) I observed the changes in ways beyond the physical. Very slowly, I see how emptying my mind during meditation lends its own kind of peace.
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