I like this idea. I think I’ll try it. It’s similar to what I’ve been doing while meditating recently: every time I notice I’m distracted, I’ll say the current thought that was distracting me, and count up by 1.
In more detail, for the past 10 days, I’ve spent an hour or so meditating while walking. I’ll let my object of focus vary pretty freely between my footsteps or sounds. When I notice that I’ve been distracted, I’ll say the immediate cause (without tracing back) and count up by 1. I’ll count up to around 50 distractions in an hour or so (this is with practice: on the first day I don’t think I got past 30 before things became… indistinct?). This has been fairly effective, to the point that today some of my distractions were short enough that I realized their original cause without even thinking about it. I’m interested to see what happens when I try to trace back my distractions.
Something like half of my distractions are thoughts about how awesome I’m going to be once I’m enlightened or whatever. It’s ironic that this may be the main thing holding back my meditation practice right now.
I find walking much more effective than sitting. If I try to meditate while sitting, I’ll inevitably get groggy. This isn’t unique to meditating—I’ll get groggy while sitting for a lecture too—I just generally focus better while standing. (Unless I’m coding, in which case sitting is fine? I’m not sure why it’s different.)
Question for more experienced meditators: is it ok that I let my object of focus vary? Should I be more concerned about having a consistent object of focus?
Advice for less experienced meditators: “focus on the object of meditation” does not mean what I intuitively thought it did. When trying to do that, I try to focus on that to the exclusion of all else, and it goes poorly. Instead, it means what I would have described as “be present and aware of things in general, and also be aware of the object of meditation in particular”. That is, focus on it, but not to the exclusion of other sensations. I learned this from The Mind Illuminated.
I like this idea. I think I’ll try it. It’s similar to what I’ve been doing while meditating recently: every time I notice I’m distracted, I’ll say the current thought that was distracting me, and count up by 1.
In more detail, for the past 10 days, I’ve spent an hour or so meditating while walking. I’ll let my object of focus vary pretty freely between my footsteps or sounds. When I notice that I’ve been distracted, I’ll say the immediate cause (without tracing back) and count up by 1. I’ll count up to around 50 distractions in an hour or so (this is with practice: on the first day I don’t think I got past 30 before things became… indistinct?). This has been fairly effective, to the point that today some of my distractions were short enough that I realized their original cause without even thinking about it. I’m interested to see what happens when I try to trace back my distractions.
Something like half of my distractions are thoughts about how awesome I’m going to be once I’m enlightened or whatever. It’s ironic that this may be the main thing holding back my meditation practice right now.
I find walking much more effective than sitting. If I try to meditate while sitting, I’ll inevitably get groggy. This isn’t unique to meditating—I’ll get groggy while sitting for a lecture too—I just generally focus better while standing. (Unless I’m coding, in which case sitting is fine? I’m not sure why it’s different.)
Question for more experienced meditators: is it ok that I let my object of focus vary? Should I be more concerned about having a consistent object of focus?
Advice for less experienced meditators: “focus on the object of meditation” does not mean what I intuitively thought it did. When trying to do that, I try to focus on that to the exclusion of all else, and it goes poorly. Instead, it means what I would have described as “be present and aware of things in general, and also be aware of the object of meditation in particular”. That is, focus on it, but not to the exclusion of other sensations. I learned this from The Mind Illuminated.