7 ways to overcome the obstacles to meditation

Someone e-mailed me this question yesterday.

Q: Susan, I have trouble committing myself to the cushion… please address this.

A: We all have difficulty with this. I totally understand. When you sit on the cushion, you’re agreeing to sit down with the unknown. Sometimes this feels terrifying, sometimes exciting but, mostly, it’s just kind of ordinary–and it’s this ordinariness that might make us think “nothing is happening” or “I must be doing this wrong.” And then we give up. However, it’s actually considered a good sign when the practice becomes a bit boring–you’ve stopped trying to entertain yourself. So hang in there with all the ups and downs–and flatness.

Buddhists have written a lot on overcoming the obstacles to a meditation practice, because people have been encountering these obstacles for like 2500 years. (I write about them in detail in my book.) The traditional obstacles are:

Laziness (of which there are 3 kinds: regular; becoming disheartened; being too busy)

Forgetting the Instructions (spacing them out, basically)

Laxity/Elation (being too sleepy and dull or getting carried away by some exciting experience while meditating—both are distractions).

Some of the suggestions for overcoming these obstacles include:

1. Trust. At some point, you had an insight that meditation was valuable. That’s what made you decide to try it out. You can trust that insight. Recall it to yourself before you practice.

2. Take it slow. Don’t commit to a life-long meditation practice and then beat yourself up when you screw up on day 3. Don’t do that. The only thing worse than not practicing is beating yourself up for not practicing. So instead of diving in head first, commit to a week-long meditation practice. Say to yourself, “I’m just going to sit for 10 minutes a day for one week.” (Or 20, or 30, or 5, or whatever you choose.) “At the end of that time, I’m going to reconsider.” Then you can do anything you want. You can commit to another week. Or month. Don’t decide about the next phase until you complete the current one. And so on. Just make the commitment doable.

3. Delineate. Before you sit down to practice, tell yourself: “Now I’m going to meditate. Period. Everything else can wait, nothing is going to be more important to me for the next ten minutes. Not e-mail, not the phone, not my responsibilities, nothing. Period.” (Or five, or twenty, or whatever you decide).

4. Create critical mass. If you practice for a few minutes every day, this is way better than a lot of minutes on a few days. Routine is the key. Continuity is more important than duration. Then at some point your practice reaches the kind of critical mass that brushing your teeth has. It’s just something you do and it feels icky if you don’t do it.

5. Review. Before you sit, review the instructions. It’s so easy to forget them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat down to meditate and it took me 10 minutes to remember, oh yeah, I’m supposed to be focused on my breath. If you’re doing Shamatha (The Practice of Tranquility) as I recommend in my book, read over the points of posture, instructions on breath, etc. before you practice. Whatever your practice, review the key points. Just a quick review really helps.

6. Keep coming back. If you have a fabulous experience or an awful one on the cushion, it’s all the same. Don’t let either convince you that you’re doing it right or wrong. Just keep coming back. As long as you’re coming back—to your breath, to  your cushion—you’re doing it right.

7. Find community. It is crazy helpful to practice with others. You can go to a Shambhala Center (which is the lineage I practice in) if your town has one, or a Zen center, or a Vipassana center. These are all good. Just make sure that you choose a lineage that is, say, older than two thousand years. We want something trustworthy and time-tested! Most meditation centers have public sitting where you can get some instruction or just sit with others. It’s enormously supportive and inspiring to be with others who are working with their minds as you endeavor to. And of course, you’re always, always welcome to join me on one of my retreats. My website has the schedule.

I offer audio meditation instruction here. E-mail me with any questions. Seriously.

Other practitioners: What are your suggestions? What helps you to overcome obstacles?

Last, remember that If you take your seat, rouse the intention and aspiration to meditate, the practice will do the rest. All you have to do is walk through the gate.