I tried to make meditation one of my daily habits but i just couldn’t meditate properly, i often think about my day and all what happened, even when i focus and try to see only the darkness, my eyes open, can you give me some tips please ?
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Meditation is not something which can be tried… i mean if you are not relaxed you cant meditate… actualy meditation happens on its own… We cant meditate because Our Body is in agitation and disturbed… It is not relaxed to allow the Peace of Light enter within us…
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Just observe the thoughts coming and going
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I know what you mean.
I think at first it is important to try to not move or give in if your body’s telling you to shift your position.
Second thing is that you have to pick a meditation method. Watching your thoughts come and go is one, focusing on your diaphragm or nostrils while breathing is another one. Don’t let wandering thoughts frustrate you! It frustrated me a lot when I started. But technically you cannot ‘succeed’ in this, your mind will always wander at some point. Just make sure you return to your method as soon as you realize the thoughts are wandering.
You can practice that starting at 5 to 10 minutes… you gotta start somewhere. You can add more minutes week by week.
When you practised that for a while relaxation and mental calmness will come by itself.
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I agree with @BorisKw totally. I’ve been meditating 6 years now, lived at a Buddhist monastery for 6 months last year, and what Boris is saying makes a lot of sense to me.
Also, I’ve learned that the ultimate goal in my practice is to make friends with myself, to be as kind as possible to myself. If I tell myself over and over again, “I can’t meditate! I’m doing it wrong!” or, “It’s so boring, I hate it!” then I am not likely to meditate very often. And even still, I may have thoughts like this when I am sitting in meditation, but the important thing is to remember that they are only thoughts. Your mind naturally produces thoughts–that’s what it’s supposed to do! Trying to train your mind by force, thinking, “Stop thinking!” is like yelling at a dog to stop barking. Dogs are supposed to bark; it’s what they do! Minds are supposed to think; it’s what they do.
The trick is to not get caught up in believing all the thoughts you have. They are just thoughts. The more you meditate, the more you will notice them till they become like a waterfall of thoughts pounding you on the head! In this case, think of yourself moving out of the water and to a dry spot close by. You will be watching the thoughts go by quickly, but not be under their control. Don’t hold onto them or push them away, just watch.
One of my teachers said that we in the West are so obsessed with training our bodies, working out, etc. But no one ever thought to teach us how to train our minds so diligently. Mind training is just as necessary to having a healthy life! You have already started that training by meditating! The challenge here is to make it a habit.
If you’ve ever made something a habit, like working out, writing, learning a musical instrument, etc., you know you can have good days and bad days. Some days seem so awesome! Everything is going well, you feel good, you are learning, etc. Then other days, you might hate it, nothing is going right, you are tired or bored, etc. But to keep the habit, you have to keep it up every day. Just like nofap. Except you are adding a behavior when you meditate. With nofap, you are subtracting a behavior.
There’s a guy called BJ Fogg who talks about behavior modification a lot. Look him up on youtube under BJ Fogg Ted Talk tiny habits. He talks about how creating a behavior can be easier if you pair it with a behavior you already do. Like, every time after you use the bathroom, do 2 push ups. It won’t seem like much at first, but it will add up. Then the next week, do 4 push ups each time, etc. If you get up to 10 push ups every time you use the bathroom, you’ll probably be doing 60-70 push ups a day.
So start small. Maybe after brushing your teeth in the morning, go sit and do 5 mins of meditation. I agree with Boris’ recommendation to do short sits at first, even if it doesn’t seem productive or beneficial. My teacher said it’s more about establishing the habit at first, then adding on more time.
Another teacher says, “Don’t judge your meditation.” This is important too because there really isn’t a right way to meditate. You said you had trouble keeping your eyes closed. In my lineage, we meditate with our eyes open. Try it! See if it works for you. If not, try something else. Experiment. Be creative. Meditation does not always have to be super serious. Although I agree with someone who said it above to eventually decide on a particular form of practice: concentrating on the body breathing, breath counting, etc. This is because if we spend all our time trying out different stuff, we will be distracted and searching for the “right” method. It doesn’t exist! Choose something eventually and stick with it for a while, even if it gets boring. Boredom is nothing to be afraid of and can give us a good look at how our mind is working and how we behave in response.
Anyway, I’m sure that’s enough for now. If you want to talk more, respond here or DM me if you like. Good luck, @DiouriR!
MJ2019
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Absolutely agree with everything @MJ2019 said. The one thing I’ll add is that I found using a guided meditation app helps, especially at first. I got on very well with the Calm app (iOS and Android), as there are heaps of different meditations on there and they use all of the different techniques mentioned above. If you try it, start with the 7 Days of Calm which is an introductory series, designed to teach the basics of meditation, with lots of reassurance along the way.
Good luck, and stick at it! They say it takes at least 8 weeks of daily meditations to start to really benefit, and I’d agree with that.
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