Keep getting distracted?
Everyone gets distracted during meditation — even people who’ve been meditating for years. You’re in good company.
The first stage in creating a beautiful garden is to realize how many weeds there are to be cleared up. If you feel a bit daunted by the sheer volume of trivia that your mind seems capable of creating then it’s good to remember that you need to know it’s there before you can do anything about it. Also bear in mind that dealing with it will bring you happiness.
It’s as if you’ve just inherited a beautiful garden, which is full of weeds. You can’t just pretend that the weeds aren’t there — you have to do something about it. With a real garden you could always just get rid of it or hire someone to look after it. With your mind you don’t have that luxury. Leave it alone and it will just get worse. The best thing to do is get started as soon as possible on clearing those mind-weeds.
If you ever feel frustration with your distractions, then remember that when you realize you’ve been distracted in meditation you have a choice — you can choose to exercise patience and gentleness with yourself. Getting mad or getting despondent will only make things worse.
So chill, and patiently continue working at clearing the weeds from your wild mind.
It can be reassuring as well to know that there are tools that help us reduce the level of distraction we experience. Simply returning our attention to the breath every time we realize the mind has wandered is very effective in the long term. Counting the breaths is another way to bring more stability to the mind in meditation.
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Comments
Comment from Rob
Time: October 30, 2007, 5:49 pm
how much of a distraction warrents starting the count over? I’ll have many thoughts pop up of varying degrees of intensity but I don’t necessarily lose track of the count.
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: November 1, 2007, 7:00 pm
Hi Rob,
If you are staying with the breath to some extent and maintaining continuity with the counting then you don’t need to start over again.
Your thoughts will slow down in time, but you might find it useful to do what’s called in vipassana “noting.” In noting you make a brief mental, well, note of what’s going on. So if you’re worrying you can say “worrying, worrying” or you can simply note “thinking, thinking.”
Another useful thing is to think “I wonder what I’m going to think about next?” and then watch what happens. Generally you’ll find that you become more attentive to the background mental silence in which your thoughts manifest, and this can encourage yet greater contact with that silence.
All the best,
Bodhipaksa
Comment from ely
Time: August 17, 2009, 10:01 pm
Greetings, Bodhipaksa:
I have just started my meditation practice. I’m an extremely type-A person who has a lot of trouble relaxing in general. It could be that meditation is the only relaxation I get outside of sleeping, and as I meditate, I continue to yawn. And not once or twice….continually, for the entire time. Then my eyes start to tear up. I’m wondering if you have heard of it and have any other suggestion other than to acknowledge and then move on without judgement?
Thank you,
Ely
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: August 18, 2009, 9:38 am
Hi Ely,
I’m not sure what’s going on with the eyes tearing up. Do you have any particular emotions happening at that time?
But the sleepiness — well, as you’ve probably surmised, when you don’t give yourself opportunity to relax you’re going to exhaust yourself, and when you’re exhausted and you close your eyes you’ll feel sleepy. The fundamental thing, I think, would be to pause more during the day, even if it’s just to take a three-minute breathing space. Doing that several times a day would help slow your mind down. The only thing more fundamental than that would be to get more sleep at night or to take a nap, which is something not enough people do.
Oddly, perhaps, I think meditating in the morning would be most likely to slow you down during the day.
There may be posture issues as well. Any slumping, or even just having the chin tucked in a little too much, is going to exacerbate any tiredness.
And lastly, when you’re tired, pay more attention to the sensations of the breath high up in the body — the sensations in the upper chest, or even in the head. And pay more attention to the in-breath by saying “in” as you inhale or by counting just before each in-breath.
I’ll be interested to hear how you get on. Please do feel free to give me a progress report.
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