Your goal is not to battle the mind, but to witness the mind - Swami Muktananda
“Sitting quietly for 10 minutes everyday, eyes closed, and staying in the present? How hard can it be?” I asked myself, after listening to what seemed like the 100th podcast extolling the virtues of meditation.
After clocking 3,000 minutes in 281 sessions over almost a year, here’s what I can tell you.
(1) It is hard. 10 minutes seems like an eternity when the proverbial “monkey mind” swings into the past and the future, mocking my attempts at staying put.
(2) Guided meditation is very useful in coming back to the present. But the guidance has to be just enough to take you to a place and not anything more (if you’ve been to a yoga class where the teacher starts unloading every Sanskrit word known to humankind, you know what I mean).
(3) My first seven sessions were awful. Later, for every ten sessions, I’d have a couple that were bad. It gets better. In the good ones, I have seen glimpses of my mind as a dispassionate observer.
(4) Carving out a specific time each day is important for sticking with the habit.
(5) Start small (even 2 minutes), but do it everyday. A friend and I have coined it the “Dr. Do Very Little Method.” Expanding the time to 5 or 10 minutes later is not difficult.
(6) Headspace is the app of my choice. The voice and guidance of Andy Puddicombe, founder and teacher, is perfect.