So, Meditation

[catsittingstill]

To be subtitled: I am taking a break from mixing.

I have been trying to meditate.  It is basically paying-attention practice.  I sit (or sometimes do other things) and think about my breathing.  Just notice it, going in... going out.... going in....  It's not the most interesting thing in the world, which is kind of the point.  My mind keeps trying to take off and think about other things.  "Like a puppy" say the meditation books.  And I keep directing my attention back to my breath.  Meditation, at least for me, isn't about the paying attention to the breath.  It's about the refocusing attention back to the breath.  It's all about the trying again.

Maybe when I get better at it, this will be different.

But in the meantime, it occurred to me to wonder, how much else is really all about the trying again?  How much of persistence is really just refocusing wandering attention back to the (objective)?

Speaking of which I'd better refocus my attention back to my mixing.

Comments

[antongarou]

As someone who has been doing meditation peripherally for years(martial arts, specifically Aikido), my experience is that the more you fight it the more your mind will not focus. But let the thoughts surface, and go through you and come out on their other side(I hope I'm making sense), and then continue through the next layer, etc. There will be time when you don't manage to get to the calm after all the thoughts, but when you do you'll be there fully, without the part of yourself that's allway tense to "catch" attention that's wandering and redirect it.

Hope this helps.

[catsittingstill]

Well, if I just let the puppy wander off, the trick is not to follow the puppy.

Because then I'm not meditating, I'm just sitting still thinking.

[randwolf]

"The mind is a drunken monkey," is the saying I have heard, but I am not sure how old it actually is.

I think the point of meditation to learn mental skills that will carry over into the rest of life.

[catsittingstill]

I hadn't heard the drunken monkey--though I have seen it compared to a regular monkey, chattering all the time.

I agree that the point is to learn mental skills (or maybe "develop mental muscles" is the way I'm thinking of it) that will carry over into the rest of life. Which is part of why I think of it as "paying attention practice." It turns out it also feels good--at least the lovingkindness part feels good, which is great, but I'm kind of hoping for a payoff in stronger, more focused attention on daily matters, and a calmness in the face of minor setbacks.

[pocketnaomi]

This is basically why I don't meditate. Because it's not very interesting. I'm sure there's probably something I'm missing, but it doesn't actually relax me or anything to sit there thinking about my breath, and I have other things to think about that I like a lot better. So usually, my substitute for meditation is to sit still and think about something I enjoy; inventing imaginary characters, for instance.

[catsittingstill]

It's fine for people not to meditate. It won't be everyone's cup of tea.

But for me the not-interesting part is both paying-attention practice (because some things I need to pay attention to *aren't* very interesting--or only become interesting when I really pay attention) *and* helps me relax. Thinking about something pleasant, like designing a rolling box for my octave mandolin, is pleasant but exciting--and exciting doesn't help me sleep, or help me focus on some task that is not what I'm excited about. Quite the opposite in both cases, really.

But if you don't find it relaxing, (and if you don't get to a point, after about fifty breaths, when you can think of someone you love and feel the love flood your whole heart--for me this is sometimes startlingly intense) then there's no reward there to make it worthwhile for you--and not wasting time with something like that is only good sense.

[pocketnaomi]

I've never tried the thinking of someone I love exercise. I might give that a shot, and do the breathwork ahead of it in order to see if it makes a difference.