persistance pays off!

For the last month or so, every time I've sat down to sit, it's been a struggle. My mind was completely untamed, not willing to settle down at all, just going crazy. It was so bad that I actually cut my meditation time by about half of what I was doing before! There didn't seem to be any point to just sitting there and bearing down on myself for so long. But I kept at it.

And now, my mind is getting settled again. This week, I've been able to get nice and calm, and collected, and I am increasingly still with each session. I've been able to start lengthening them again. Now, instead of dreading them, I am once again looking forward to the sessions. It's great!

And it's all because of persistance. That is probably the most important advice for meditation: Stick with it. Be persistent. Keep at it. Don't give up.

If you're anything like me, or most meditators, you'll go through periods where your mind is wild and you'll spend the entire time chattering away to yourself, or lost in thought, or fantasizing about the future, or remembering the past, or whatever. And you'll go through periods where every session is calm and collected and blissful. And there won't seem to be much rhyme or reason as to what drives these cycles. Sometimes it's related to something going on in your life, or maybe some deep issue is surfacing that you need to deal with, but most of the time, it just seems to be random. A few weeks of chaos, a few weeks of stillness, lather, rinse, repeat.

So don't get discouraged when you hit these difficult times. Just keep at it. The calm, settled times will come again!