Take a Moment

“But listen to me. For one moment quit being sad. 

Hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you.” 

- Rumi

Your Future Self is Better Than You

People are naturally competitive... even when no one is around we tend to compete with ourselves. Yesterday's quote was all about this. It can be a major motivator, or it can be an anvil holding you down.

Generally yoga is considered non-competitive. Generally. There are asana competitions and there's many peoples tendency to eyeball the best person in yoga class wanting to have the ability to hold a textbook Utkatasana for minutes without a sweat. Humans compete - it's built into our genetics and instincts. If we weren't competitive the human race would've died out instead of the neanderthals. Competition is handy when it decides who lives and who dies. Its even helpful when you're trying to achieve a goal and you need something to help you do better today than 2 months ago. Competition drives progress.

However, sometimes that competitive outlook can weigh you down if you're not on top. If you're doing worse today than yesterday, or six weeks ago, or four years ago - your natural drive to want to be better than you think you were then is going to irritate and discourage you. It happens, but don't let it get you down. Just because you sat in painless meditation for 45 minutes yesterday doesn't mean you have to do it again today. Five minutes is just fine.

Let yourself be where you are today. Sometimes you need to compete with yourself on your ability to accept things as they currently are.

You're Doing it Wrong

I often have students, friends, and family members ask me about meditation. They always claim to have tried it unsuccessfully. They say - I can't shut off my mind. No matter what I do I just keep thinking about all these things. In response I like to say - You're Doing it Wrong! In jest of course, because I don't think you can really meditate "wrong".

You can, however, have expectations that are too high, or be judging yourself too harshly - all "wrong".  The monkey mind that swings from branch to branch (or thought to thought) is totally normal. We all have it. So don't be so attached to the idea that you're going to make that monkey stop dead in it's tracks. If you're crafty you can eventually manage to persuade the monkey to play on a single tree, but mostly he's just going to do his thing with or without your consent.

I read an article on Elephant Journal recently that made me chuckle - and I think it puts this common meditation worry into perspective. A little quote from it: "I never force my mind to go anywhere in particular when I sit zazen. When thoughts come, I let them come. When they go, I let them go. Of course there are times when the chugpi is struck three times, signaling the end of practice and I realize that really, I was just pretending to meditate the entire time." His meditation practice sounds a lot like mine so I was amused to read the thoughts that run through his head during meditation.

Read the rest of the article here: Top 20 Thoughts to Think While Pretending to Meditate

Just remember that to sit in meditation is progress. You don't have to be transported to God's palm and have deep psychic discussions for meditation to be "working". It's not about being productive, so just let it go.