“You must start your mindfulness first. You should ask your mind: ‘where am I? Am I with the body? Or am I with the mantra? Or am I thinking about this or that?’”
The problem is that when you sit, you expect either very quick or very powerful results. Don’t worry about the results when you sit. Just try to concentrate on the meditation object and let the results happen by themselves. If they happen, fine; if they don’t, it doesn’t matter. Just develop mindfulness. Just be mindful of your meditation object; for example, if you are mindful of your breathing, just keep watching. When you are breathing in, be aware that you are breathing in. When you are breathing out, be aware that you are breathing out. Just know. Don’t try to force your breathing. Use the breathing as an anchor, to tie your mind, to prevent it from thinking about this and that.
Whether you have results or not depends on your focus and concentration. The problem with people is that when they have to sit still, they tend to react, and they don’t like to be still. They are used to doing all sorts of activities, and when they have to sit still, they become stressed. So maybe this is one of the reasons for your problem with your body when you sit in meditation. But you don’t have to worry; it is not a big deal. Just acknowledge it and come back to your meditation, come back to your concentration, come back to your focusing or meditation object. If you don’t think about them and don’t worry about them, then you will not get distracted. Once you get distracted, you cannot go on.
So forget about everything that might appear at the time of your meditation, only pay attention to your meditation object. If you use breathing, just focus on your breathing, and ignore everything. Sometimes you might feel an itch here and there, and sometimes you might feel you are leaning too much to the front or to the back, to the left or to the right. Don’t worry, don’t adjust your body posture. Leave it alone, keep on focusing and concentrating on your meditation because these are the distractions that you have to face in your meditation practice. And if you pay any attention to them, you will lose your concentration and will not be meditating anymore. So keep on focusing/concentrating on your meditation object only, regardless of whatever you feel. If you feel itchy, forget about it; don’t try to scratch because if you scratch, you will keep on scratching. Just keep on meditating.
Maybe when you first start, you might not see much progress, but the result that you have already achieved is that you are able to sit for a while, to be able to sit still and meditate. You have already achieved something by doing this, and you have to do more and more, especially the development of mindfulness. Before you come to sit in meditation, you first must have mindfulness if you want to have any result. If you don’t develop or maintain mindfulness before you come to sit, when you sit, your mind will be wandering here and there. Your mind will be thinking about this and that. And you will find it very hard to focus on your meditation object.
So first of all you must try to develop mindfulness in your daily activities from the time you get up. When you start to get up, you must start your mindfulness first. You should ask your mind: where am I? Am I with the body? Or am I with the mantra? Or am I thinking about this or that? If the mind is thinking about this or that, bring it back. You can think, of course, if it is something important. Like you might have to plan what you are going to do today. But once you know what you are going to do, you should then come back to the present, back to the body or back to your mantra, and continue with the daily activities mindfully: going to the bathroom, washing your face, and brushing your teeth. Whatever you do, just be with that activity. This is what is meant by maintaining mindfulness or developing mindfulness. Once you have the mind concentrated or fixed on the body activity, when you sit down, you can use the mantra or you can use the breath as your meditation object, and your mind will not wander here and there, thinking about this or that. And you can get the mind to become still very easily and very quickly. By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
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