'I know I feel better after I do it, but I'm not doing it.' My friend said this almost defiantly, though she was asking for help. 'I don't know why. I always feel better after I meditate, but I'm not doing it.'
This is more common than I wish it were. What is this about? It's a question that some of us have spent much time on, in a sense, though the conversations we've had have been more about how to encourage people not to stop than why we stop. The only things I know that work:- Don't learn to meditate until you're 48. By then you've tried every other possible avenue for self-fulfillment and happiness and failed, so when you find this actually works, you're not willing to give it up.
- Be sure that when you learn you are in an absolute pit of despair and have spent quite a bit of time there. You will continue meditating purely out of gratitude.
- Marry someone who is a meditation fanatic. And likes to control things. Likes to be in charge. Then every morning around 7:00 and every evening around 5:00 they'll say something like, 'Are you ready to meditate?' or 'Let's meditate.' And if they're really controlling, you will find it simply easier to meditate than to avoid it.
- Get rid of your computer. Quit Facebook. Hire someone to answer your email for you.
What actually works, though, if you cannot follow any of the suggestions above, is to become conscious of the affects of meditation on your life and on you. Though it often is said that 'comparison is odious,' juxtaposition, on the other hand, of our present state with a former state can be very powerful.
After we have meditated, regardless of how 'busy' or thought-filled a meditation it may have been, if we ask ourselves 15 or 20 minutes later how we feel in comparison to before we meditated, we may find something to help support arriving to the chair for our next scheduled meditation. Do I feel a bit more rested than I did before I sat down, a bit more prepared to face the day? Do I feel more at ease, more able to look at the unresolved conflicts in my life without anxiety? Do I have a higher capacity for identifying myself as something other than my thoughts and my feelings, and am I able to name the stress release thoughts and feelings as evidence of evolution, rather than as problems to be solved?
Do I feel more at one with, more connected to something greater than myself?
Secondly, there is a thought experiment we can do (and I recommend actually taking a moment to do this, rather than simply thinking, yes, that would be good to do). In my thought experiment, I visit the man I was the day before I learned to meditate. I somehow am able to gift him with the state of consciousness I experience today. He is able to see the world, and himself in it, the way I see this myself. And in this thought experiment, when he is given this gift, I see relief wash through him and this man that I was bursts into tears of gratitude. 'Thank you,' he says. 'This is all I've ever wanted. I'll never ask for another thing as long as I live.' This man is me. I am him. The difference between then and now is meditation and the change, in so many ways, is staggering. And when I make that juxtaposition, I can see, too, that it is a progression that has continued. The practice continues to change me, but I can only see those changes when I find the way to step outside of myself.
Meditation works best when we make it a 'no matter what,' when we do whatever is necessary to get to the chair, twice a day. I brush my teeth every day, I shower every day, I sleep every night, I meditate twice a day. These activities are generally non-negotiable, and the rest of my life will structure itself around them. It's easy to add meditation to the list.
Today I will make an appointment with myself to meditate, twice. I will put it on my calendar and I will show up for it, as if it were important. As if the person I am meeting is someone I love and respect and don't want to let down.
Frank Gehry Beekman Tower, Lower Manhattan, NY NY
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