Deliberately ignoring Meditation - Ego?

MT2

Hi All,

Just curious on your thoughts on this.

I've never properly tried to Meditate as I think I'm 'scared' of failing. I practice in every day life as much as possible, i.e. compassion, using a mantra to avoid impatience etc. I also have a prayer that I would use regurlarly before sleeping, or in moments of stress.

I'm just wondering, following a recent book I read, would you think it's my ego playing tricks on me?

In the same thread, I also tend to wonder how excatly and why exactly mediatation is so important to link with the rest of everyday life? Is it not enough to bring love, compassion and kindness into your life and everyone you meet?

Either I'm missing the point, haven't reached the right moment yet or the Ego still has a major hold on me. WHich I'm sure it does.

If it explains anything, I do tend to get quite frustrated with myself when I don't managed to inject compassion into a situation, lose my patience etc... It's something I'm working on but I seem to deviate from my path as soon as I'm unsettled... ALthough I think it's getting better.

Wow, sorry if that was a ramble but I am curious to know some of your thoughts on my meditation question and my queries on it.

Isn't it said that doubt is basically another of one ego's tricks? And when does intelligent questionning become doubt?

Thanks lads, hope that wasn't too hard on the eyes/mind!

MT

Asiaprod

Welcome. I trust one of the members here can answer your questions. I do not meditate much myself so I am not really and expert. I use it as a method to just relax and unwind, and a chance to just give my mind free rein. I do know that there is a lot more to it:)

odinreln

Hi,

i meditate , and use a few different Buddhist techniques. I would recommend starting to meditate as soon as possible. There is no reason to be scared of failing, because you cannot fail at it. some days you will have great practice, and others, your mind might just not settle, but the journey of practicing, of sitting, and simply observing, is whats important. once your start to do this regularly, i promise you will see your whole mind and body in a different perspective.

If you are already practicing compassion a lot, and you add regular meditation to this, then you will see great progress over your conditioned mind. I personally find meditating easy, and progress quick, but find universal compassion hard sometimes. i get it academically, but in practice, with so many horrid people in the world, it can be hard to accept. but i have to remember, that everyone of us is the product of our conditioning.

you mention impatience. this was one of my personal vices. and before i started practicing Buddhism, and meditation, in my head, all my quick judgments and rushing were justified. but after i started meditating, and reading more and more about the conditioned human mind, suddenly when i got really impatient, id stop straight after and say, wait a minute, why am i so flustered and rushed?

the more i meditated, the more impatience disappeared. and there was no need for a mantra to stop it, it just didn't happen. Not that it never happens now, but it only ever happens, on weeks when i haven't been sitting.

Meditation is the key practice, for observing your own mind. your own thoughts, your own emotions, your body, and all the sensations inside. if you think of whole body as a library, and all thoughts,emotions,sensations are different books to study. meditation is simply the door to this library.

So you asked, why is it important for everyday life if one can just bring love compassion and kindness. yes these are all important things for the true practice of Buddhism(or just being a nice human). but, without true knowledge into your own personal emotions and thoughts, you leave yourself open to become a victim of your own conditioning. which will slant and obscure your perception. practicing meditation, shows you how your thoughts are formed,and how quickly emotions can take over your whole body. with understanding this, you can easily not succumb to negative thoughts, or strong emotions like fear, anger, envy.

in my view, it would be doubt if you haven't even started trying something, or given something proper time to experience and your already being negative, doubtful and presumptuous about the outcome. and it would be intelligent questioning when you have experimented with it, researched it, and you still have not got the desired results, leaving it open to questioning and amending.

hope this helps


Odin

MT2

That's great!

Thanks a million for the taking the time to reply, makes a lot of sense what you said.

Also - you really answered the doubt/questionning query I had - so simply but so true!

Thank you very much. I'm off to give it a proper shot now!

MT

odinreln

no worries,

good luck with it. if you have any other questions or experiences you want to talk about just ask. there are lots of different methods for meditation, one last tip would be to stick with one for a few weeks or months(depending on how often you practice) and try become comfortable with it before moving on to a different method. chopping and changing all the time will most likely keep you at the beginners stages for longer.

laters


Odin

MeditationMom

Try to avoid meditation at all cost! Good luck Go out and kick a soccer ball, climb a tree, watch a ton of TV and avoid meditation as if it were dangerous and illegal. Give it your all, and it will find you.

MT2

Meditation Mom, could you elaborate on that please?
Do you mean when I'm ready I will kind of thing?

Thanks!

MeditationMom

MT2 - sometimes, when you try the opposite of what you have been trying to do, it can show you the mechanism of what is preventing or motivating you.

There is no purpose in meditation itself. It is like going to the gym to do strength exercises so you can be more fit for actual life situations. If you have plenty of opportunity to practice compassion, patience and empty mind in real life it is more valuable than meditation. There are plenty of people who get less patient and less compassionate once they start meditation as they become hypersensitive to people "disturbing" their peace. People can develop quite an Ego as "Meditators" as well.

You say that you are "scared" of failing. In whose eyes? Don't think of meditation as a mental or brain type accomplishment or skill you can achieve, or fail to achieve. Think of it as a relaxing pleasure. Your great love affair with the All of Existence, or God if you will, until you feel re-united with what you have been longing for. Such peace, such relief, such a feeling of coming home to where you belong. Like resting your head on your pillow after a long day. Such meditation will make you very generous and compassionate towards others automatically.

Being scared, BTW - always is Ego. Who is scared? And of what? Failure, embarrassment, disappointment, frustration...are all Ego concerns. Ego simply means resistance. Think "no resistance, no effort, no problem" and relax deeply into the simple bliss and rest of meditation.

MT2

Meditation Mom,

Thank you very much for your input, it also makes a lot of sense and sits very well with me.

Thanks all for the time and effort!

MT

Mervatron

My two-cents...

Although I am aligned to no school of Buddhism (nor am i Buddhist) i do practice meditation and i read unhealthy amount of books/talks on Buddhism/meditation.

Through practice and listening to people on the subject, my personal opinion currently is that my aversion to sitting is my ego. Your brain desperately wants to indulge itself, to run free on all kinds of thoughts. Meditation is the attempt to calm that, to do something else with your consciousness, so the ego will rebel against that.

As for compassion, i think compassion comes a by-product of meditation. As you begin to engage more closely with reality you begin to erode notions of duality (i.e. me and the world, me and my boss, me and you), but more importantly you become more aware of your own thoughts. I find myself being aware of a seed of anger, or aggression in me. As such i am able to step back a bit and not leap in and act on my emotions.

Not that im a particularly good meditator, nor am i very successful at the above, but i have found it to be true to some degree.

DublinWriter

MeditationMom wrote: »

Try to avoid meditation at all cost! Good luck Go out and kick a soccer ball, climb a tree, watch a ton of TV and avoid meditation as if it were dangerous and illegal. Give it your all, and it will find you.

Very true.

I think that practising 'Mindfulness' is paramount.

I endeavour to make my conscious activities a constant exercise in Mindfullness.

As Sogyal Rinponche once said, in everyday life, when you come across a beggar, or one who is lame, the immediate response is to look away to avoid distasteful feelings. In truth, you should look such persons fully and not suppress your innate feelings of compassion.