fredclaymeyer's Forum Posts

Really excited for this! Hope I didn't join late...

So where's everyone from?

I struggle regularly with putting off meditation. In general, I'd say turning the feeling that I "should" meditate into actual behavior is an uphill battle.
Recently, I read a bit from a book that's always been a favorite of mine (Illusion's Game, by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche). As I was reading, I found that I wanted to meditate, because of the author's genius and the sense that it came from a lifetime of practice.
So a recommendation is: if you have a favorite book, just try innocently reading a few paragraphs. As you're reading, if you find that you feel inspired to meditate, go do it before the feeling wears off! I'm going to see how this works for me. I'll try to report back.

What a sweet site!
http://kindworld.tumblr.com/page/3

A comment someone made about a recent meditation session reminded me of this: I can really tell a lot about how my mind is by examining the tension in my face, particularly my forehead and eyebrows. (Other people mention the jaw as well, although I wouldn't say I carry any particular tension there.)
Relaxing those areas actually makes me feel better, too; I've found it difficult to be miserable with a calm, relaxed face.
As a sidenote, traditional artwork depicting very advanced meditators tends to draw them with relaxed eyes; and I find that highly awakened people who are actually alive do indeed have those eyes. Here are a few photos--see what you think:
1. Traditional "wisdom eyes" drawing;
2. Buddha statue;
3. Adyashanti (modern spiritual teacher).

I recently finished a post at the Medivate blog describing what I think are some of the main challenges for people in maintaining a meditation practice, and how to approach them.
I hope you find it interesting, or helpful, or both! If you have thoughts, I'd love to hear them, here or on the blog itself.

I just found this beautiful and very strange video on bodhicitta by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche:

I just did a several-day meditation retreat. It was wonderful, and I came out of it completely energized to practice. I would absolutely recommend taking any amount of retreat time you can manage--it's one of the best things you can do for yourself.
I'm back in a fairly stressful situation now, and I can see those stresses gnawing away at my practice. So (for my own benefit and everyone else's) here are a few thoughts on doing a post-retreat correctly:
• When you get out of it, continue to sit twice a day, morning and evening. It's really important to carry forward the practice momentum you've had.
• As a way to keep it a priority in a busy schedule: Notice how you feel during and immediately after a retreat, and think of that as being the result of meditation (which it is!). So, if after the retreat something comes up that threatens to interrupt your practice schedule, ask whether the thing is worth risking the benefits of practice for. Maybe it is, but at least you'll recognize the tradeoff you may be making.
• Don't worry too much about "holding on" to whatever benefits you feel in retreat. Some of these are just temporary excitements that only exist in a retreat environment and are bound to wash away anyway; and the things that really are lasting, valid insights will be difficult to access if you're worried about clinging to (your idea of) them. What you should hold onto is the practice itself.
Hope that's helpful! I better go practice soon...

So, this may be bad advice, but I find that I personally sometimes really benefit from taking a couple days off of meditation every month or so.
I don't really plan to do it—it's more like I temporarily exhaust my discipline, which is easier for me to do than I'd like. And there will usually be a period of two days (not more than that) where I don't sit, and get lost in work or time-wasters instead.
I've found a couple of things consistently happen:
1. I start feeling the benefits of the practice quite strongly. I find this bizarre, but it's true. It's almost like the mind I'm cultivating needs a bit of a break from practice before it sinks in fully. The closest analogy I've thought of is that if you'd been training really hard for a marathon, your body might start to feel really good a couple of days after your last training session. I'm sure that analogy's terrible on a bunch of levels, but the experience itself has been pretty consistent for me with meditation.
2. Conversely, I start to get hit really hard with neuroses I don't usually face when I'm meditating regularly. After about two and a half days of not sitting, I'll start to "drift": I notice more and more trouble controlling my emotions (especially fear and irritation) and connecting with what I value and find beautiful in the world. It quickly gets quite terrifying, and I find it really helpful for reminding me just why I meditate.

I'd love to hear thoughts on this. I guess this isn't really advice, just something that I've noticed is helpful, and it's been consistent enough that I thought I'd share it.

Here's a guy who managed to meditate every day for a year through being accountable to a friend and setting a routine.
There's really a lot in here—it also talks about how his attitude and motivation shifted before making the commitment, and the news article (on meditation and the brain) that inspired the shift.

I never realized what was going on with Mister Rogers, but he was really quite a guy... The "poetry" bit is a song for children, toward the end.

I found a thread by that title on an online forum called Vipassana Forum—here's a link.
I think it's a pretty good question. For me, the first few answers that come to mind are:

• I'm not as irritable as I would be otherwise. When I don't sit for a few days, I start saying and doing things I really regret.
• I don't get overwhelmed by fear, generally.
• I'm much more compassionate and perceptive than I would have been without a meditation practice.
• Meditation sort of gives my life "context"—not "meaning," but a sense that I know what I'm doing here and how the whole thing works.

I'm sure there's more, but those seemed like the first few answers that came up.

So what does it mean? Any particularly helpful definitions?

I generally meditate with my eyes open, but I often find that closing my eyes for some amount of time seems to settle my practice. It seems a bit like putting a blanket over a bird's cage: the bird quiets down pretty quickly.
It seems most helpful either: 

• As a break or change of pace in a generally "scattered" or chaotic session.
• For a few minutes at the beginning of a session, when I remember to do it.

A caution: do not try this when you're very tired. You'll go right out and probably crack your floor...

Pretty good advice, I think!
http://www.wikihow.com/Find-Motivation-to-Meditate

Here's an article that claims to lay out the main reasons we struggle to meditate.
 
I'm not sure I love the article--there's something about its overall tone I'm not crazy about--but I'd be interested to hear whether these are, indeed, the right problems, and the right pieces of advice for working with them.

From Frank Ocean--not strictly poetry, but a beautiful statement of compassion. (More the song than the video...)