Why You Should Be Meditating
If it feels extremely difficult, you’re doing it right.
I’ve been meditating again. I got lost there for a while. It feels amazing—like coming home.
When I meditate there’s generally a point at which I take a big inhale and let out a big exhale. Aptly, I call it the “Big Breath.” I don’t think it is within my control but I’m always grateful when it happens. There is another point at which I forget that I am in a body. It is something like falling asleep, but different.
Sometimes I do actually fall asleep. That’s just par for the course. I think the naps that happen because of meditation are an even better form of sleep. Whenever I meditate or sleep on my Zafu cushion I realize that I could be content without a massive, queen-size bed. I could probably be content sleeping on tatami.
Now that I’ve meditated, I want to do something. I desperately want more caffeine, more sugar. This life is craving and craving is suffering. I am not sure that anything else besides meditation can help me get through this. Most of the other options are methods of getting around the problem. Meditation allows you to move through it, which is the only real way to rid yourself of whatever suffering you’re experiencing.
I am still lonely, bored, and extremely uncertain. But meditation is there for me no matter what. I can always access the part of myself that is unencumbered by the minutiae of worldly life. My life is happening right here, right now, and meditation is the way to tap into that truth.
When you are sitting in meditation, you are actively letting go of the plans, aspirations, anxieties, and stories that plague your mind. Nothing is future and nothing is past. All is right in front of you. All is with you — within you.
Meditation allows me to express gratitude for my breath, my existence. Getting quiet and still allows my mind to access higher truths, truths that my intellect could never reach by itself. Meditation also frees up blockages such as the writer’s block that was tormenting me today prior to my session.
You will learn something every time you sit for meditation. You might not be able to put the lesson into words but it’s inevitable. Tapping into your truer self in meditation will naturally open your worldly self to a baseline of higher consciousness. Meditation is not an easy practice and it is a discipline one must commit to. It is actually incredibly difficult to do nothing, but doing nothing can expand everything within you.
The sentiments “I cannot meditate” and “I can’t stand meditation” are the two most emphatic signals that one must practice meditation. Dealing with feelings of discouragement and failure — moving through them, watching them without attaching to them — is the practice of meditation itself.
If the practice were easy, if it provided instant gratification, nobody would commit to it. There would be nothing over which the higher self could prevail. If you are in that position in which you feel that meditation is completely out of your reach, you are actually in the exact position you need to be to begin. Your busy mind offers a wellspring of opportunities to practice non-attachment. You are like a ripe fruit ready to be picked — you are finally ready to be transformed.
