Thoughts and Observations After 60 Days of Meditating 60 Minutes a Day
General Observations
1. Meditation is just a tool, not an end in itself. I started working with Michael A. Singer's stuff roughly 2-3 weeks after I started this challenge. And that's when I realized that by itself, meditation, while useful, is missing a huge piece of the puzzle. And that piece is the fact that meditation is a tool to help us:
- notice what's inside of us (few people ever get to stop to watch the chaos in their heads),
- learn that we don't have to follow/act on the thoughts/emotions that we think/feel (the act of watching them is essentially what the meditative practice is about),
- most importantly: that we aren't our minds. We're the consciousness that happens to be observing the mind. Just like you aren't your leg, so you aren't your mind (which is very, very hard to understand and I'm still struggling with this concept; yet know deep down that it's true). The mind is a computer that was fed certain data (stuff that happened to us) and so now behaves a certain way. As Michael beautifully puts it: "Take a computer, fill it with certain data and then ask it a question. It'll come up with a certain answer. Don't change the data but keep asking the question. You're getting the same answer. Because it's the only data it has. Change its data, you'll get totally different answers. That's how you look at every human being you meet from now on."
2. Coupled with the above, meditation is an extremely powerful tool to improve your emotional control. You cease to be reactive and impulsive (which is the cause of most problems in life). I used to struggle with anger attacks, sometimes for really silly reasons - for example, when I hit my head against something.
Meditation helped me, figuratively, increase the time that passes between the first sign of an emotion (say, anger) and the time when it's impossible not to express it. The magic happens in between - when you observe the emotion as it grows and you decide to just watch it, not feeding it. It's amazing how these emotions melt away when you simply choose to watch them. Note that you don't fight with them in any way. You're just focusing on being okay feeling them but not taking any action whatsoever.
For example, recently I had a language class during which I struggled to repeat a sound correctly. I noticed growing frustration inside me. I realized that my entire body was getting tense and I was about to react to it. I kept observing the emotion, consciously relaxed my body and it went away. I use the same technique almost every day whenever something/someone provokes a negative reaction in me.
3. Meditation and mindfulness will change every aspect of your life. I could have written several seperate points about different areas of life, but ultimately it's such a powerful meta-habit it makes no sense to list them all. I'll just give a few real life examples.
- When you meditate, you focus on what's going on in your head. With practice, you learn to notice when your thoughts drift away, when you refocus, and when something distracts you again. This skill is incredibly useful in conversations. When I talk with people now, I focus 100% on what they're saying. Thanks to meditation, whenever I feel my thoughts drifting away, I can quickly refocus and not lose focus on the other person. In a world with so many people who easily get distracted, this is an immensely powerful skill.
- As you meditate more, it gets easier and easier to focus. You no longer need a distraction to let your mind rest. You don't have to switch from one task to another. For example, as I was watching a movie with my girlfriend (The Soul, which is a pretty good movie for anyone into mindfulness), she asked to take a break so she could "distract" herself a little (she wanted to check her podcast performance so she's excused LOL). Usually I'd check social media during such a break. This time I simply sat and pondered on the movie. I didn't need to switch my focus to something else to relax.
- Practicing meditation and mindfulness slightly slows down the pace at which the life around you unfolds. Or so it feels. A second feels a little longer than a second. You start noticing beautiful things you haven't seen before. Someone's brief smile. The way dust particles float in your living room when the sun is shining outside. Or more practically, the bad position of your wrist when performing a certain exercise or your reaction time to something potentially dangerous happening while you drive.
- You become more peaceful and content. This is particularly influenced by Michael A. Singer's work. Since this is not a thread about spirituality but about meditation in itself, I'll just say that meditation shows you that you can be 100% okay without any external stimuli. In other words, you don't need ANYTHING to feel great. Naval once said (I think in an interview with Tim Ferriss) that morning meditation is his best time of the day. The outer world has little to offer if the act of sitting still (something available to everyone for free) is your greatest mood booster.
4. 60 hours is nothing. While of course that's 60 hours more than zero, in meditation we always want to cultivate the beginner's mind as
@Olimac21 pointed out. Being arrogant about one's meditation/mindfulness practices is antithetical to spirituality. Arrogance is the ego/the judgmental mind, which is the thing we want to stop confusing with ourselves.
As for the hours of practice and potential effects, consider the following:
@Mutant once cited data from
this site:
While 100 hours is just 40 days more for us (and I'm already seeing many of the mentioned benefits), 500 hours, with one hour of practice a day, is almost a year and a half. And 1000 hours is almost three years of daily practice. I won't even mention 5,000 hours or
the incredible 12,000 to 62,000 lifetime hours of practice for world-class meditators.
In other words, this is a lifetime practice, not something you learn once and know well forever.
5. Meditation is a gateway drug. Meditation directed me toward Michael A. Singer's work (mentioned on this forum repeatedly, particularly by
@MJ DeMarco) and now I can't see the world in the same way as before.
It will reorganize your entire life, change your priorities, and make you realize that the stuff you're looking for is actually not outside but inside.
Meditation/mindfulness also greatly complements entrepreneurship as it's impossible not to succeed if you're extremely conscious, focused, and approach the world from the position of an honest giver.
Technical Observations
A few technical observations for meditation in itself:
1. There's no "bad" meditation, just like there's no "bad" practice where you repeat the same thing over and over again. But you'll be tempted to call many of your sessions "bad." Out of my 60 sessions so far, I'd say that I had maybe 5-10 really exceptional sessions, defined as sessions when I entered a deep state. Then there were roughly 20-30 sessions that were just okay and the rest was either bad or terrible, defined as struggling to control my mind and failing at it.
But in reality, every session is useful. Because it's not about whether your mind is empty or not, but about the practice of watching your mind in itself.
2. Your position matters a lot. If you're uncomfortable, you won't be able to relax and focus on what's going on inside. Experienced meditators probably can meditate while hanging upside down, but we newbies can't.
So don't force yourself into some weird position. I can't sit with my back straight for a full hour without any support. After trial and error, now I sit on a sofa, with my back against the cushions and my legs either outstretched, resting on a cushion placed on a coffee table in front of me, or simply on the ground.
Again, to reiterate: if you aren't comfortable, this will be a terrible experience. So find a way to really relax your body. Don't sit in a cross-legged position if it doesn't work for you. This isn't about some sexy exotic positions reserved for meditators.
I think that meditating in a float tank would be best as it's as relaxed as you can get but this is obviously impractical for most people, particularly to do it daily. If I lived in a house, I'd probably invest in one. Perhaps one day.
3. What you ate the day before will impact your session the next morning. You'll be surprised how in tune you'll be with whatever your body is digesting as you meditate. Including all the delicious sounds, smells, etc. LOL
4. Your sleep quality will influence your sessions, too. I had at least 10 sessions (probably more) where being half-awake was an issue. I had to focus on not falling asleep vs on watching my mind.
5. Set two two timers - an alarm clock and a timer. This way you'll get rid of the anxiety, wondering if you set the timer. Perhaps with time you won't need it (I now more or less know when the session is about to end), but I found it very comforting.
? Just another point of reference - In my experience, some of my deepest meditations initially were when I went from sitting on the couch to cross legged on the floor (with the help of a block). It made me realize that there is truly no such thing as a bad meditation, and struggling with the body is just another part of the game (it's not all about the mind), and of course the struggle part isn't even really an issue after a while.
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