When Meditation Feels like Un-Meditation?
If you have read my twitter-tweets recently you may have also noticed that I have decided to restart my personal Big Sit Challenge. The “Big Sit” is a “challenge” started by Tricycle magazine to encourage those within the Buddhist community to sit in meditation for twenty minutes each day, for ninety days. When I had learned about this challenge last year I had so much excitement about trying it out (I wrote about it here , that I could not wait to get my butt on my cushion! It feels a little weird typing words that express that much excitement over meditation but it is really true. I was excited.
It was not just the idea of waking up real early before work to sit in zazen that made me excited, there was more to it then that. There was something exciting about just the idea of Tricycle putting this challenge to the community. Participating in this online sangha, if only as to “just sit”, made me very excited.
Life Happens – Trials and Tribulations
It is the strangest thing.
I don’t remember exactly how many days I was able to continue the challenge of meditating each morning, I think it was about thirty. What I do remember was that it became a very difficult time for me, both in my life and my sitting. It was in fact a good thing that I had begun this practice because the difficulties and negativity of the time only seemed to mount. It happens. I am grateful that had learned so much in the years up until this point and that I was sitting, it honestly was exactly what I needed to walk away from a less than positive situation feeling I had been at my best. (I am very grateful to all of my teachers in the Dharma for this very thing.)
It is hard for me imagine my enthusiasm for the Big Sit and at the same time learning of the Genjokoan to be anymore motivational. Unfortunately, that motivation could not keep me sitting every morning at this time. But this isn’t an article so much about “who” is at fault, but more about making a note of “what” had happened. I mean, now that I am starting this practice again I want to make a wholehearted attempt.
When meditation feels like un-meditation?
It was strange finding myself thirty days into my the challenge and thinking that my meditation was doing me more harm than good. As the pressure of the situation mounted, I still could bring myself to a sense of peace and clarity, but I also found that as the pressure mounted I was trying to do more things while getting more tired. I was just waking up more and more tired everyday. My zazen started feeling more like a dream than a meditation. Perhaps because the environment of my life had become less than positive for my wellbeing my mediation seemed to becoming “dark”.
This was really strange to me. I mean, it is one thing to ruminate during meditation (is there any really wrong way to meditate?) but here I was getting up at an un-buddha-ly hour and meditation simply felt like “un-meditation”. It was more than rumination, or I should say different than rumination; my meditation seemed to take on the pale of a bad dream.
Stop Mediation Practice?
When I think about this time I do remember thinking that I was just not awake enough to really be mindful of not only my zazen but my morning. I had started the practice with my other half, so my schedule was not quite completely my own. I got enough sleep, but probably not enough to get up so early. Doing zazen, under these conditions and first thing in the morning, left me in the “dream state”. I don’t expect my meditation to be all happiness and light, but seeming to start my mornings dark each day made me decide it was time to stop. I decided to stop my morning meditation practice. Of course I knew I could pick it up another day.
Peachy-Keen
I was trying to figure out how many days I have been sitting now each morning on this new personal big-sit challenge. I started on Monday March 22nd and my meditation has been just great. I also have been able to pick up a book on the Genjokoan: “Flowers Fall”, which is a commentary written from the lineage of Enkyo Roshi who presented the video dialogs of the Genjokoan for last year’s “Big Sit”. I can’t say that reading Dogen is easy, but I really do like it 
 Flowers Fall: A Commentary on Zen Master Dogen’s Genjokoan (9781570626746): Hakuun Yasutani: BooksISBN: 157062674X |
What is working for me this time? Self-Mindfulness
In a much more productive way then a killing-spree, I have, since the last challenge, slowly removed much of the unproductive negativity from my life (Yay!), but I don’t think that this is what has kept me seated in zazen each mornings these days. I think having more positive people around me would have certainly made a huge difference, but there were some things that I did have control over that I think would have helped keep me to my morning mediation too. Number-one was giving myself some time in the morning in between waking and meditating. I tried recently, waking up and going straight to my cushion to sit zazen, it wasn’t a “dark” dream but I did feel I was still in a dream, and that it was not the best I could do for myself. Just giving myself sometime in the morning to transition from sleeping to fully awake has made quite the difference. It seems silly and a little sad looking back that I didn’t have the wherewithal to figure that much out. The other thing that has helped is just getting more sleep. These days I am actually getting up earlier than I was during the first challenge, but I have decided that this is important enough for me to give up my evening time (and I am an evening person) to sit each morning, well, at least for ninety days
Un-meditation Experiences?
In my practice I have found that if a person sits, there really is no “wrong” way to do it, but looking back at this time in my life where sitting seemed “the wrong thing to do” I have become curious if others have had similar experiences.
Have you had a similar experience? Heard of similar experiences? What have you done to augment your meditation practice over time?
Please comment or email and let me know…
Namaste…
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