The word buddha means awakened. Most people are not fully awake because they are lost in their thoughts and emotions. They are regularly reacting to the world. This causes a lack of contemplation and leaves them confused, ignorant, and misunderstanding the reality around them. They are lacking insight.
Insight is gained through meditation. First, calming meditation by not allowing the thoughts in your mind and your surroundings endlessly distract you. Second, insight meditation by cultivating your mind on a single purpose such as gratitude, kindness, self-awareness, compassion.
When you have learned to calm your mind and develop insight you begin seeing the world more clearly. This reduces your suffering. The source of all our mental suffering is wanting the world to be different rather than clearly seeing it for what it is. When you do not see or experience reality clearly you become attached to the desires (both good and bad) which would make life your way. These attachments perpetuate your suffering.1 By letting go of your attachments you become free of them.
“You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you.
True power is sitting back and observing things with logic. True power is restraint.
If words control you that means everyone else can control you.
Breath and allow things to pass.”
– Warren Buffett
The wonderful thing about developing a meditation practice is you don’t have to master it to start to benefit from it. The benefits can start immediately, do start in a week, and have significant impact in just several weeks.
It’s called a meditation practice because you have to practice it every day.2 Preferably 2-3 times a day for 10-20 minutes each time. In today’s world, this probably sounds inconvenient, and you’re wondering where do I fit this in? I’ve found it does take discipline, but it’s achievable with behavior adjustments. Here’s a few you can reduce and replace with meditation:
- Scrolling on your phone
- Posting on social media, and commenting on articles/posts (social, news, otherwise)
- Watching television
- Participating in unhealthy relationships
- Engaging in idle chatter (sports, politics, entertainment, etc.) and gossipy conversation
- Getting drunk and/or getting high
- Time spent on busywork that doesn’t accomplish anything of value
You’ll notice almost everything in this list, at its core, is or is related to a toxic behavior. Reminds me of the saying, “An idle mind is the Devil’s playground.” Do you recognize any of these? Maybe you have others. You know, the things you do that come with at least a tinge of guilt. You should listen to those, stop doing them, and replace those choices with healthier experiences. It makes me think the simpler life is the better life… the chorus from John Prine’s ‘Spanish Pipedream’…
“Blow up your TV, throw away your paper
Go to the country, build you a home
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches
Try and find Jesus on your own”
Making time becomes a two-for-one opportunity… Reduce/Eliminate toxicity from your life and reduce your suffering through meditation. With these changes you can find time for a 20 minute meditation in the morning, over lunch, and in the evening. Once you’ve established meditation fundamentals, instead of finding 20 minutes of meditation over lunch, you could instead meditate for 5 minutes in-between meetings or tasks.
Another thing to understand about finding 30 to 60 minutes a day is that it aligns nicely with the Buddhist practice of the Middle Way. The Buddha emphasized the importance of restraint and moderation, not falling into the extreme of overindulgence.1 It’s important to understand and recognize extremes occur on both ends of the spectrum. When you make this recognition you begin to see reality more clearly. The Buddha came to his realization when he observed both people completely absorbed in self-denying and abstinent practices and other people who were completely engrossed in materialism and gratification. In the context of our current topic, finding time to meditate, at one extreme you could go on as you are and not meditate at all. At the other extreme, you could go to a weeklong retreat and meditate nearly all day long. But there is a compromise available by making some lifestyle adjustments. As my Grandma used to remind me, “Everything in moderation.”
Meditating regularly will give you awareness as your thoughts arise. This will become your natural mental state (as opposed to reacting to your thoughts after they have arisen). This earlier awareness allows you to exercise restraint on when, how, and which realities you respond to. The effect of this is to be calmer in your mental state and behavior, and to be more balanced in how you respond to events (if you respond at all). The benefit to you is a reduction in anger and obsessive thinking, and the benefit to those around you is you are more enjoyable to be around.1 If everyone did this, the world would be a better place. We transform ourselves for the benefit others.
“Watch your thoughts, they become your words.
Watch your words, they become your actions.
Watch your actions, they become your habits.
Watch your habits, they become your character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”
― Lao Tzu
The first step to freeing yourself from habitual, compulsive mental patterns and reactions is to begin your practice of calming meditation for 5 minutes a session.