[rojobuffalo]

It's remarkable that I so often lapse in my meditation practice when it's such a short time commitment and so consistently improves my mood. I tell myself that morning yoga is enough or a walking meditation while taking the dog out is enough - I do those every day without fail. But they're not the same as seated breath work.

Why do other mood improvement habits seem more approachable, like making a cup of tea or exercise or a shower, while sitting and breathing seems harder?

[wpietri]

For me during meditation, many thoughts arise. Often they are things I am troubled or anxious about. If I am doing something else, I have a ready-made distraction from those thoughts. But if I'm just sitting, I actually have to be present for them. It's much harder to build a habit where the short-term payoff is negative.

You might try making it part of a broader routine. Lately (and unusually for me) I've been struggling with sleep. So I've explicitly adopted a bedtime routine that gets me to wind down. As part of that, I light a big candle when I start the routine. Then the last thing I do before blowing out the candle getting into bed is to sit down by the candle and use it as a medication focus. This way I feel like I'm getting the sitting for "free" in that I don't have to expend any willpower to make it happen; there are other positive associations that serve as the reward.

[leashless]

http://files.howtolivewiki.com/.meditation_2015/transcripts/... This came out of an attempt to strip the core meditation techniques down to completely remove the mysticism, and adjust the practice cycle for long-term solo practitioners who are agnostic or atheist and can't lean on concepts like "The Buddha" or "Lord Shiva" (although I myself am Hindu.)

The critical innovation is doing ten minute rounds of different practices, so no practice is held for very long. This seems to help a ton with "mind wanders" and surprisingly doesn't seem to impair overall progress at all. If anything the rotation of practices seems to improve overall concentration and keeps people from hallucinating because they've been staring at a blank wall for six hours!

[qwerty456127]

> who are agnostic or atheist and can't lean on concepts like "The Buddha" or "Lord Shiva" (although I myself am Hindu.)

Whoever can accept the Gödel's incompleteness theorems and still use math, doesn't mind games, simulations and usage of different dimensionalities and topologies, also can practice both visual and sensory imagination - is perfectly capable of believing in Buddha, Shiva, whoever and whatever for the duration of the exercise if they chose to. Blieving in a diety with certain characteristics, an embodiment of certain archetypes/feelings/intentions during the practice can do night-and-day difference in efficiency and precision of intentional nervous system regulation.

[jelliclesfarm]

Going from a card carrying atheist(youth..gah!) to a more sensible agnostic to dipping my toes into faith again has been interesting. A covid revival and immersion.

Spirituality + Meditation/Mindfulness + Religion is definitely more colourful..trippy. I don’t know why. Can’t articulate.

The only downside is the random fanatic, but I guess they exist amongst the atheists too.

The poverty of imagination that marks spirituality without religion is debilitating to sustaining any kind of life long practice. Happily, the flavor of religion of my birth family affords me all the pagan goodness and room to explore freely. Life is good now. Better..rather.

[zzzeek]

I've read at least three books on meditation and worked with a variety of apps, recordings, etc, and as these are all created for a western audience I've never seen anything mystical or religious in any of them. Anything by Jon Kabat-Zinn should be pretty free of religiosity for example , as his goal was to promote mindfulness within a medical setting.

[aidenn0]

> Welcome to that there meditation class. I’m Vinay. This is intended as a private recording (and transcript) so please don’t stick it on YouTube. I will pass it around to people who should have a copy.

I guess this technically wasn't stuck on YouTube...

[jddj]

You might be understating the task.

After all, all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone

[nvader]

I've heard meditation described as "motionless ju-jitsu with yourself". In the absence of any obstacle, the only opponent is you, but by definition you are equal in strength to yourself. So meditation can devolve into a heated evenly-matched contest of wills, which is extremely draining.

[nprateem]

It certainly shouldn't. Your aim is just to keep bringing your attention back to the object of attention. Each time you do that is a success, so feel pleased with yourself at that point.

Fighting is a bad habit that will send you down a blind alleyway in meditation. There should be no striving, no effort, just gentle persistence.

[calebio]

Very well said! Your comment reminded me of this video I saw a few years ago, "Understanding the Monkey Mind" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-JiQubfMPg

When you stop fighting your monkey mind, your monkey mind becomes your friend and ally instead of your opponent or enemy.

[rojobuffalo]

Oh man I love that description! It makes me think how exercise is like a contest against physical limits, which are knowable. Hard work leads to heavier lifts or longer runs. But when you kick your own ass in meditation, the limits are more ambiguous and progress isn't so linear.

[weregiraffe]

"Perfectly symmetrical violence never solved anything"

[klyrs]

> sitting and breathing seems harder?

The stillness, I think. With adhd, that's my challenge anyway. The mind does not shut off, and 5 minutes can feel like forever. Even thinking about it makes me squirm. But I took a yoga class once that did breathwork, and with guidance, I found the ability to focus my entire attention on my breath; the action and the feeling of it.

[akomtu]

It's one of the preparation methods: if you have too many thoughts focus on your breath, if you're addicted to pleasures focus on disguisting things, and so on. What happens if you just ignore your thoughts, if you watch them like images in a boring movie? Thoughts compel you to follow them, but you dont have to.

[JenrHywy]

I find this problem with the vast majority of practices, and annoying, particularly with those that work. If I read a book or listen to a podcast that touches on the practice I'll pick it back up, then it will gradually fade out over time.

This is true even of really low-effort things, like box breathing, or drinking a glass of cold water on waking.

I think habits are just hard to maintain as an individual, and historically we've leaned on communities to keep us on-track. The best workaround I've found is to subscribe to podcasts that regularly touch on the practices to keep them within my awareness, but that's far from perfect.

[swayvil]

Re : lapse in meditation practice.

Concentration meditation. I used to do it as much as possible. Every day. Sometimes 2, 3, 6 times. I was kinda nuts. But my practice was strong.

Vipassana + concentration. My practice was extremely erratic.

Vipassana. Just vipassana. That's what I do now. My practice is very consistent. Haven't missed a day in a decade.

I think it's because vipassana is more compatible with the rest of my life than concentration. So there's no big transition. I'm basically doing vipassana, in varying degrees, all the time.

For what it's worth.

[andrei_says_]

What do you mean by “doing Vipassana, all the time”? Body scanning? Focusing on equanimity? Observing change in the phenomena you’re perceiving?

[AndrewKemendo]

>Why do other mood improvement habits seem more approachable, like making a cup of tea or exercise or a shower, while sitting and breathing seems harder?

The Feedback loop is longer and impact more subtle so you don't correlate the effects with the action as strongly

[bambax]

I don't meditate but I have learned to control and suppress hiccups and there may be a connection.

The way I do it is still very relaxed and focus on a point that is somewhere in front of my forehead, and have very regular, simple breathing, without forcing it. It takes less than a minute of this for the hiccup to go away. I think the trick is to think about nothing instead of thinking about the hiccup.

[stanislavb]

The million dollar question! I guess as we can't "see" the direct benefit and it somehow seems boring ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

[graderjs]

It’s hard to sit there and bare yourself to yourself.