Resistance to practice as beginner

First, modified 4 Years ago at 4/1/19 7:25 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/1/19 7:25 AM

Resistance to practice as beginner

Post: 1 Join Date: 4/1/19 Recent Posts
I am a beginner meditator. I began practicing a month ago after reading The Mind Illuminated and MCTB2.

I practice 20min a day every morning at a set time. Every time I sit, I experience mental resistance to practicing before and during my practice. It feels like mental discomfort as though my mind is squirming to get out of practicing.

Why is this? Is there something I can or should do with this? Does this change over time as I continue to sit?

Thanks for your help in advance, everyone!
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Chris M, modified 4 Years ago at 4/1/19 7:32 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/1/19 7:31 AM

RE: Resistance to practice as beginner

Posts: 5117 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
Yes, this will probably change with time as you practice more. But please realize that this is the first lesson in how your mindworks. You can't control it. As you practice you will learn to relax and observe whatever your mind is doing, and in that relaxing and observing you'll find that your mind will very likely slow down and thoughts will come less frantically.

Keep going - you're making progress already. You noticed this!
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Raving Rhubarb, modified 4 Years ago at 4/1/19 8:57 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/1/19 8:57 AM

RE: Resistance to practice as beginner

Posts: 73 Join Date: 7/5/18 Recent Posts
First:
I am a beginner meditator. I began practicing a month ago after reading The Mind Illuminated and MCTB2.

I practice 20min a day every morning at a set time. Every time I sit, I experience mental resistance to practicing before and during my practice. It feels like mental discomfort as though my mind is squirming to get out of practicing.

Why is this? Is there something I can or should do with this? Does this change over time as I continue to sit?
What about now? Does it change already? If you sit for 20 minutes, is the discomfort exactly the same all the time? Are there periods where it becomes more or less? Does it recede once you're near the end of the session? Are there small moments when it's not there? Is it connected to bodily discomfort, and if so, does that subtly change during the session?

You don't need to do anything about this, but if you really want to manipulate your experience, you could ask yourself 2 questions:
1) Is there any way you could actually enjoy this experience? Could you somehow enjoy mental discomfort?
2) What happens if you stop meditating? Instead, at the prescribed time, you sit down and pretend to meditate. Pretend to actually be a mighty meditator who does the things which you usually do in meditation.

How do you meditate?
Matt, modified 4 Years ago at 4/1/19 10:15 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/1/19 10:12 AM

RE: Resistance to practice as beginner

Posts: 316 Join Date: 1/14/14 Recent Posts
You post is a Rorschach test for the rest of us, now you get to see how everybody thinks differently. emoticon

First:
...
Why is this? Is there something I can or should do with this? Does this change over time as I continue to sit?
...


Welcome to the tortuous journey! One paragraph per question:

I think you're experiencing resistance because most fibers of your brain can imagine a better way to spend their time than just sitting there.

I think you should accept that it's hard and continuing to sit. Listen to all the answers you get here, then stick with the formula in TMI or MCTB. My personal formula for beginning meditators would be: sit for 20 minutes once or twice a day till half of the difficulty with that has dissipated, then increase the time to 30 minutes, repeat the cycle till you get to 60 minutes and proceed with everything else. Take what random people on the internet say with a grain of salt, but recognize when some bit off advise might result in more sitting then consider following that. If you try it and it's aweful, find something that seems more helpful.

Do an experiment: if you continue to sit, does the situation change over time? emoticonemoticonemoticon

****
What on earth were you thinking, reading two big books and then starting to meditate? You must be leaving lots out of your story!

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