Why do other mood improvement habits seem more approachable, like making a cup of tea or exercise or a shower, while sitting and breathing seems harder?
You might try making it part of a broader routine. Lately (and unusually for me) I've been struggling with sleep. So I've explicitly adopted a bedtime routine that gets me to wind down. As part of that, I light a big candle when I start the routine. Then the last thing I do before blowing out the candle getting into bed is to sit down by the candle and use it as a medication focus. This way I feel like I'm getting the sitting for "free" in that I don't have to expend any willpower to make it happen; there are other positive associations that serve as the reward.
The critical innovation is doing ten minute rounds of different practices, so no practice is held for very long. This seems to help a ton with "mind wanders" and surprisingly doesn't seem to impair overall progress at all. If anything the rotation of practices seems to improve overall concentration and keeps people from hallucinating because they've been staring at a blank wall for six hours!
I should have clarified that in the earlier post. I should also note that I’m not a dharma teacher by trade: I do that as a hobby, mostly I run a tech company. I teach out of respect for my own teacher but am not making “a thing” of it.
Which I think keeps me honest: zero money changes hands etc.
I guess this technically wasn't stuck on YouTube...
Spirituality + Meditation/Mindfulness + Religion is definitely more colourful..trippy. I don’t know why. Can’t articulate.
The only downside is the random fanatic, but I guess they exist amongst the atheists too.
The poverty of imagination that marks spirituality without religion is debilitating to sustaining any kind of life long practice. Happily, the flavor of religion of my birth family affords me all the pagan goodness and room to explore freely. Life is good now. Better..rather.
Whoever can accept the Gödel's incompleteness theorems and still use math, doesn't mind games, simulations and usage of different dimensionalities and topologies, also can practice both visual and sensory imagination - is perfectly capable of believing in Buddha, Shiva, whoever and whatever for the duration of the exercise if they chose to. Blieving in a diety with certain characteristics, an embodiment of certain archetypes/feelings/intentions during the practice can do night-and-day difference in efficiency and precision of intentional nervous system regulation.
After all, all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone
Fighting is a bad habit that will send you down a blind alleyway in meditation. There should be no striving, no effort, just gentle persistence.
When you stop fighting your monkey mind, your monkey mind becomes your friend and ally instead of your opponent or enemy.
The stillness, I think. With adhd, that's my challenge anyway. The mind does not shut off, and 5 minutes can feel like forever. Even thinking about it makes me squirm. But I took a yoga class once that did breathwork, and with guidance, I found the ability to focus my entire attention on my breath; the action and the feeling of it.
This is true even of really low-effort things, like box breathing, or drinking a glass of cold water on waking.
I think habits are just hard to maintain as an individual, and historically we've leaned on communities to keep us on-track. The best workaround I've found is to subscribe to podcasts that regularly touch on the practices to keep them within my awareness, but that's far from perfect.
Concentration meditation. I used to do it as much as possible. Every day. Sometimes 2, 3, 6 times. I was kinda nuts. But my practice was strong.
Vipassana + concentration. My practice was extremely erratic.
Vipassana. Just vipassana. That's what I do now. My practice is very consistent. Haven't missed a day in a decade.
I think it's because vipassana is more compatible with the rest of my life than concentration. So there's no big transition. I'm basically doing vipassana, in varying degrees, all the time.
For what it's worth.
Such as?
Or if you want a truly esoteric brick, Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali. (The big yellow one)
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTPsQJu...
From Raja Yoga. Translated. Samprajnata Dhyana and Asamprajnata Dhyana, respectively.
I do that awareness shape all the time.
The Feedback loop is longer and impact more subtle so you don't correlate the effects with the action as strongly
The way I do it is still very relaxed and focus on a point that is somewhere in front of my forehead, and have very regular, simple breathing, without forcing it. It takes less than a minute of this for the hiccup to go away. I think the trick is to think about nothing instead of thinking about the hiccup.