Does anyone have a daily meditation practice? Would anyone like one but needs motivation?

[mangolassi]

Ooh, I feel all shy

I am agnostic and generally confused about spiritual things, but after recovering from a bout of pnd found a great book - The Mindful Way Through Depression. It has a programme of daily meditation, and I've tried in the past, but it's soooo hard to stick to with no support.

The meditation style in the book is 'western insight' - basically vipassana with the Buddhism taken out - but it would be great to have a thread for anyone trying to get started with daily practice, whatever kind of meditation appeals. Even better if there's anyone who actually has a daily practice already

mango and serin - thats exactly what I'm looking for, the ability to be calm and peaceful in noisy chaotic surroundings. (I need to learn to be calm and peaceful in calm and peaceful surroundings first lol).

I had a meditative cuppa at 6.45 again this morning. I dug out a book called 'meditations for women who do too much' that I'd bought on holiday but not really looked at. There was a quote from Florence Nightingale (of all people) saying that it is hard for a woman to find any time in her day that she can be alone without upsetting someone. How true is that!

Hello

I'd like to join, in a gently lurking kind of way, as I know that this is exactly what I need, although I know nothing about anything. But you have given me lots of good starting points.

It's odd, washing the dishes is exactly the chore that makes me wonder too (I try to imagine myself into the frame of mind of a nun, making all chores beautiful, doing it as well as I can without my brain racing off to the next thing). Perhaps because it is the ultimate unrewarding task; nothing beautiful, nothing to show?

And does anyone know anything about writing and meditation? I ask as a compulsive diary writer - I need to do it to make any sense of the world and myself, but is this something I can mix in with meditation? Otherwise it all becomes another thing on the ever so long to do list...

hello girls - SO nice to read you all. i found 'eat pray love' and pema chodron's 'the places that scare you' really important books for me recently. a buddhist friend recommended pema's book to me when i was devastated by the loss of a loved one a year or so ago. also john o'donohue if you have not read him yet? celtic spirituality - but also good common sense writings on what really matters in this life, and how to achieve inner peace.

i have been on a bit of a quest for inner peace and stillness for a few years now and have found my way to a daily meditation practice - though it can be just a few minutes before bed sometimes. other times like this morning i found the space and time to sit cross-legged on my bed looking out onto beautiful autum colours and a blue-grey sky and let stillness and peace overwhelm me and bring me back to what is important in life. namely - love, really that's what it's all about as we all know!

i went through a very tough time in the last few years, emotionally rockiness all round, and this brought me to meditation. my sleep has improved no end, i feel so much calmer, happier and i no longer fear death as much as i did. fear of death being at the root of so much of our daily anxieties, i figured!

because i live in a very rural - beautiful but isolated - area, there is no meditation centre very nearby - i am hoping to start a local group soon. what there is, however, is a quaker meeting house and with some trepidation i went along there recently - and was hooked! an hour of silent contemplation with like-minded people - very powerful and strangely invigorating. there is no pressure to believe any sort of dogma and you are left to carve your own relationship with 'the divine' in your own heart. i have buddhist leanings but find that these are entirely compatible within this setting which has been very liberating!

what i also find is that regular meditation helps me to connect more deeply with people around me. this sometimes leads to surprising encounters, but very rich ones. i work in healthcare and i find it easier to open my heart to the people i work with. perhaps that's illusory but i don't think so!

yoga is very helpful just before meditating - even a few postures - just a thought!

good luck to you all girls! thanks for such an interesting and motivating thread!

ps von, rev - i love to write too. i have conflicting desires there - both to start the day with writing (have you read of 'morning pages' - clear the mind and allow you to start afresh after free-writing for 3 sides of A4 every day) AND to start the day with a good chunk of time meditating...BUT the reality is i am woken by kids and immediately cast into the frenzied harried mum role instead, sigh!!! but we all have to work our meditation into our day, don't we. as many have said on this thread. in 'buddhism for dummies' (great!! really down to earth) i remember reading of a famous buddhist nun who only came to a life of constant spirituality once her children had all grown and left home. until then she had to meditate as she raised them...wiped faces...swept the floor...cleaned the house etc etc etc. she was apparently a truly shining spiritual presence but only managed to devote her life to her calling in her 40s or even 50s, i forget. inspirational! i sometimes think the first thing i'll do to combat empty-nest syndrome when my LOs leave home is book myself into an ashram for 6 months and embrace getting some time back! much as i adore them...

Im managing a mindful early morning cuppa . Tis so hard not to just sit and plan (woeey) about the day ahead though.

I should try yoga mango .

hi there...just had utterly chaotic morning HELL at home, harrying kids out of door, fire-fighting last-minute tantrum over hairbrushing, shooing cats out of house etc and thinking longingly of - yes mango, 'tis often men eh - and some women to be sure! - beginning the day with soothing silent rituals, mindful thanks for the rising sun etc! argh!! in another life, as my yoga teacher says about some of the more obscure and clearly 'asanas'! mango - you can see john o'donohue talking at something called the 'green day festival' (or similar - something green anyway!) on youtube - he has a gorgoeus twinkly irish accent and is very benign-wise-uncley, and very inspiring.
meant to add that i first learnt to meditate in a group, in NZ, and that's definitely something to think about - check out whether one of the buddhist organisations runs a 6-week course in your area - mango as you're in thailand you're certainly in the right place - usually one evening a week for 6 weeks, that's a common pattern. really worth it as they give you a variety of techniques which you can then adapt to your own life/preferences. better start work!! byeee!

Have done nothing at all, with no good excuse. But at least I am thinking about not doing it, which is a start I suppose.

The Quaker thing is very interesting - there are Quaker connections in my family, and my mother went to a Quaker school, although I've never been brought up in that tradition. But I can see something of it in myself, I think, in that I am concerned about the consequences of my actions in the world - whether that's the job I do, or the choices I make in the supermarket.

And yes, katie, would also love to do morning pages too (in her parallel universe where she gets to GO BACK TO BED and meditate and write). Am not holding out too much hope for that at any near point in the future though. I'm not sure that my writing is meditation, like revsaid, I need it to untangle my thoughts, more like a therapy.

Mango - thankyou for the compliment on the name, although vonsudenfed are possibly the anti-matter of meditation, being rather eyewatering electro-house with Mark E Smith of the Fall yelling over the top (I changed my name when I decided I ought to be a bit more assertive on MN, and so would channel MES. It didn't work though, which is wierd, as am no shrinking violet in real life).

Right off to the dentist, but mindfully.

...all very interesting again...i literally knew zero about the quakers until 2 months ago when i found i'd agreed to go to a meeting and did a bit of hasty research on the internet but i just love it. am sure if there was a local buddhist medidation centre i'd love that even more but one has to go with what's available and they do seem very welcoming and non-judgmental and broad-minded which is very appealing

can definitely confirm the not letting thoughts crowd in thing gets easier with time by the way. i am - like many of us wimmin - the classic, mentally busy overthinker but over time with practice it really does become easier to just watch the intrusive thoughts come and then go again - like clouds crossing the sky.

i occasionally use music and can recommend a beautiful singer called snatam kaur - haunting gorgeous simple spiritual songs - great in the background for those times you want music (won't always feel right). also guided meditation CDs sometimes helpful tho i haven't much experience of those.

better go to meditate (NOT) - to feed cat, scrabble about in fridge for some sort of meal for tonight, pick up kids etc etc etc

bye girls! x

ps von my writing is not meditation-related either, it is exactly as you say, about untangling my thoughts. the great thing about meditation is that it does this too!! indirectly and magically, i have no idea how. not t hat i am exactly mentally gnarl-and-knot-free, if only, but it does definitely help!

hi rev! i love the view out of our bedroom window too. it's one of the things i am thankful for (when i remember !)yes i do know what you mean and it sounds like it's all going swimmingly - i also find meditating somehow 'clears things up' for me in a mysterious and indirect and inexplicable way. and have read that the more you do, the more this effect becomes pronouced. i look forward to solving my everyday morning tussles with my strong-willed DD imminently through the simple power of sitting still ...speaking of whom...school run beckons x

Hi rev, I also find that when I have done a meditation, even if it is just a few moments worth, that I can think much 'clearer' and often problems seem a lot less worrying.

I have also found that when I sit and start a meditation that it is almost painful to try and get my mind to slow down - it's a physical pain a bit like a headache and I have to really concentrate to make it go away. Very strange feeling.

I went to see a good friend on Wednesday and she berated me for not thinking about myself very much, that is not taking care of myself physically or emotionally. She sounds a bit horrible but she was doing it in a caring manner! And I thought about it and she was right, I have always been particularly hard on myself. So I have decided to be a bit more minful about how I treat myself, it's hard-going, but let's see what happens.

rev, just wanted to say we have both been on everlong's bereavement thread and thank you for reminding me that i've wanted to read 'a grief observed' for a long time. i will now order both that one and 'buddhism for mothers' before i forget. i read cs lewis's 'the problem of pain' 2 years or so ago - i found it intriguing but not wholly convincing - he seemed so eager to describe and pin down (and freely conjecture on) aspects of faith that for me don't feel important to unveil (as if we ever could) as mere 'unknowing' humans - but at that stage i felt desperate to 'know', whereas now i feel a lot calmer and more accepting of my 'unknowningness' as a mere human as far as matters of faith and the greater divine (or whatever one wishes to call it) go. on which note - off to bed via a speedy 5-minute 'ommmmm' moment!

ps louie - that's great. your friend may not beat about the bush but she is absolutely right. once my kids both got to school-age, after the long and frequently hard years of devoting myself just about entirely to them, as we all do in those early years, i took a breather and decided to award myself some TIME. so i actively decided against going back to work more than part-time. once you've lost that time to yourself and then regain (a bit of) it you regard it as so precious - you really appreciate its value as never before, don't you! and i have no regrets. i do work still, i'm in healthcare, and i love my work and would never stop altogether, it's so rewarding. what i find is, having more time to just 'be' and think and enjoy some solitude makes the way i work with people somehow richer and deeper. i feel more able to open my heart to them, if that doesn't sound too new-agey or nauseating. bcs interaction with people in that setting is really, at bottom, about love. and you can't fully be open to that quality of interaction unless you have managed to attain a degree of inner peace/strength/groundedness. (not that i am there yet!!) so it doesn't feel selfish (or so i try to explain to DH!!!)
so i second your friend - you deserve some time and space or whatever it is you need, of course you do!

Hi everyone,
Hope you all had a good weekend. We went away, so not much formal practice for me, but it was a much needed break from home

justabout - you're so creative with your practice, it's really interesting to read about. I think the phenomenon of solutions 'arriving' when you meditate is quite well-known. 'They' talk about meditation allowing you to naturally reframe situations so that a solution becomes apparent, and that's quite different than thinking something through in a step by step way.

You mentioned your breathing becoming shallow & tight when you read. I read somewhere recently that we often confuse numbness with relaxation - we think if we can't feel anything, we must be relaxed. Actually though, relaxation is the opposite of numbness - if you were perfectly relaxed you'd be able to feel everything more clearly. I realised that I often read because I think it will relax me, but I'm actually trying to numb myself, to forget myself and disappear for a while into a book. Maybe if you're reading and realise that your breathing is tight, you could do a quick body scan and see if there are other areas of tension?
And thanks for mentioning it; now when I read I'm going to focus on my breathing a bit

vonsudenfed - aah, I see . Actually I don't think mn is short on assertiveness, but you can't have enough mindful assertion. I reckon.
Thinking about not doing it is a crucial first step, I find. Unfortunately I often get stuck in the second step, which is thinking about it instead of doing it.
How was the dentist? Hope you didn't have to breathe through anything too horrible.

Katie - My problem is living in the middle of nowhere with no language skills, I don't think I'd be able to find anything in English close by. But I have a couple of friends, we practice yoga together once a week if we can, and I'm going to suggest that we tack some sitting meditation on the end of that, I think.

Louie - you have a nice friend. Listen to her