Who here genuinely meditates daily?

Meditation seems to be the big thing that all internet health bloggers are talking about.

So many say that they meditate daily but my experience in real life is that very few real people manage to actually do this. I have even been to classes and found other students report difficulty doing it daily.

So, out of interest, who actually genuinely honestly can say they sit down and meditate everyday?

Next question is how do you find the time? I have kids, job, wife, sports, to fit in each day. Not too mention the porn...

 

I resolved to meditate daily once I started my NoFap challenge. The idea was 3 times a day, morning, mid day and evening, for 3 minutes and then once I get the habit going to increase. Didn't end up so well. But I still menage to meditate one or two times a day now. It's slightly more than 3 min too, maybe five. But that's the consistency I wanted to develop and that part I'm struggling with. But still it's better than it used to be, which was never at all.

I always get meditation in before bed. I lie in bed, close eyes and then just breathe and mediate. Then I go to sleep. That's the best time to do it if you can't get any during the day. But everybody probably can, they just don't want to. Like me, I've been forgetting and postponing but it's not the problem of time. I think everybody can find 3 min once in a while. Every hour or so. And so it accumulates. Or at least find 15 spare minutes in lunch break. Also we can meditate while we do things, it's not like we have to sit on floor in lotus position. We can meditate while we cook food, clean or even answer emails, if that does not takes too much mental activity.

I used to meditate for more than hour every day a while back. Then I kinda deteriorated. But now I'm building it back up. I remember all the mental benefits it gave me and I miss that. I think meditation should be something everybody does just for the maintenance of brain at least. Like jogging every morning or stretching muscles.

 

I was at an hour a day until this relapse sent me off course and broke my practice. Half hour in the morning and a half hour before bed. I find myself very tired in the evenings since the relapse, fapping is entirely counterproductive to a meditation practice of any kind, so are fantasizing, lusting, viewing erotic material and porn, and edging.

I think meditation is a very ancient tool and many people would do well to try it at least for the length of a reboot to see how it benefits you.

 

Ummmm, ya the porn has to go at all costs that is alot of nice stuff to lose my man.

In the morning before breakfast (if I'm not in a rush to work) and before bed are times that allow me to fit in a regular daily practice without anything getting in the way. I mean you wake up and go to sleep everyday and nothing interferes with that, just seems like a great way to start and/or end your day.

I do always sit, except for when I fap. Once I have made a deliberate choice to edge or view something unskillful (they kind of are inseparable for my brain) it seems some energy arises that prevents me from sitting which is not a good sign at all, it would take a very dark and negative energy to make me not want to meditate. Once an urge is given into, the energy gets into your mind and forgeddaboutit.

Fapping has got to go.

 

Hmmm what you say makes a lot of sense. Once the dark thoughts take hold it is nigh on inpossible to sit in stillness.

 

I meditate every day and have done for the past 11 and a bit months. A month and a half prior to starting to meditate every day I was still an opiate addict struggling to quit. With meditation I stayed off opiates, quit all other drugs (aside from alcohol, although I don't abuse alcohol in the way I abused other substances), quit smoking, started a business, wrote a couple of books, started working out regularly, put on 60lbs (I was unhealthily underweight), then lost the excess fat and built some muscle.

The best advice I can give is ensure you meditate every day. If you don't have the time or patience to sit for 20 minutes, then sit for 5 minutes, hell even sitting for just 60 seconds is better than not meditating at all - and by ensuring you always sit down each day to meditate even if it's incredibly brief, you keep yourself in the habit, and thus it gets easier to do it more regularly and for longer.

Also, one of the biggest problems I had with meditation initially was how it is described as sitting without thinking. Try not to think of a pink elephant. It's bloody useless advice, it doesn't work. The way to quieten your thoughts is to focus elsewhere. You're only capable of focusing your mind on one thing at a time, so by focusing on your breathing, you quieten your thoughts.

The second problem people encounter, is they do this, they focus on their breathing, and they get a brief moment of respite from the turbulent thoughts normally racing through their minds. Then suddenly, a thought pops up. "Damn it!" they think to themselves, and get frustrated at their own inability to stop their thoughts.

The thing to realise is that it's 100% normal for thoughts to appear during meditation. When you notice a thought popping up, simply turn your attention back to watching your breathing. If the thoughts still don't disappear - then don't worry about it, if you're focused on your breathing and it's not stopping the thoughts, then the thoughts are intrusive thoughts that aren't your doing, and are not yours to control in the first place. So pay them no attention and just keep focused on your breathing. Even if you do forget and mess up and get caught up in a train of thought - that's perfectly fine, just go back to focusing on your breathing the moment you notice yourself doing that.

The quality of your meditation is measured by your persistent effort to direct your attention towards your breath, and NOT by how quiet your mind is. It is not the results that are important, but the process of directed attention through which you attain or don't attain them.

I am a firm believer in the idea that the harder meditation is for you, the more badly you need it. If meditation comes naturally and easy to you, then sure it will benefit you in some smaller ways, but the difference will be minimal. If on the other hand you sit down and feel like you're at constant war with your own mind, and have no patience for it, and feel frustrated, and uncomfortable, and like it's a struggle.. then you are someone who will find your entire life turned around in amazing ways if you start to practice daily meditation.

It is the stormy mind that needs calming, not the one that is already calm.