Struggling to 'get into' mindfulness

[monkeymind]

Hello,

I have been practising mindfulness (or trying to) nearly every day for a couple of months now.
I struggled initially because I was undecided on how to pay attention to my breath, but that's sort of under control now.
My next problem though is that although I sit for say 15 or 20 minutes in a dark and quiet place, I really struggle to remember to observe my breath. Instead I get caught up in my thoughts for long stretches of time.
I use a timer and it seems always the case that when the bell rings, I realise that I hadn't been meditating at all, I had just been sitting thinking about various trivial things.
I recently started to try using counting as a way to focus, but I somehow end up maintaining my counting while my thoughts are elsewhere.
I'm really keen to integrate some mindfulness into my daily life, but I'm worried that I'm wasting my time with my current setup, because I don't suppose I'm really being all that mindful or focused at all.
After 2 months, I know I'm still at the very beginning of a lifelong journey, but I feel I still haven't begun yet.

Have any of you been through this kind of stage? If so, how did you get through it?

[FeeHutch]

I still have sessions like that. Our minds aren't static so it makes sense to me that our practice isn't static either.
Another community member whose name escapes me right now (sorry) has a signature that reads 'the only bad meditation is the one you didn't do.'
I also find remembering I have a monkey mind helpful to cultivating a compassionate practice

[monkeymind]

Thanks Fee,
It's nice to know I'm not the only one that has difficulty.
I think if I had occasional sessions like this then I wouldn't be as concerned, but this is every single time, and for almost my entire session.

[BioSattva]

Hi MonkeyMind,

I often experience this too! I find it can often depend on the level of stress in my life. If there isn't much 'urgency' then my mind tends to wander and daydream more when sitting - this can be the 'curse' of a stress-free life, since progress appears to be slow during those times (although one should be actively practicing non-striving of course from within the practice). However, one can probably be sure that conditions are piling up in the background which are going to bring urgency to the fore soon enough, so there's no need to actively seek such urgency.

If you were camping by yourself in the forest in England, for example, and you knew there was no dangerous wildlife around, you could easily just let your mind drift free. If you suddenly caught sight of a group of bears, however, you would be paying attention 'in the moment' pretty quickly one would expect! The old zen masters used to talk of such dangerous circumstances as the best fuel for practice - this is how one finds that the people who suffer the most become the wisest, because they have had to find ways to overcome their own fears and self-sabotaging habits by living in the present moment with intense laser-like focus. A samurai poised ready to engage in a duel to the death becomes symbolic of such situations.

In this context, long-term mindfulness practitioners often talk of 'enjoying' difficult circumstances because it gives them something to 'practice with' - an intense itch on the nose when sitting, sitting next to a crazy person on the bus, traumatic memories and related tension 'ripe for the harvesting'. Professor Mark W. Muesse of the Teaching Company's Practicing Mindfulness: An Introduction to Meditation speaks of when a bee landed on his face during a formal ceremony and it crawled between his glasses and his eye. He used his mindfulness practice to stop himself from freaking out - haha. An incredible story, but it's those kinds of things that become 'food' for remaining more in the moment and practicing accepting. I was a massive daydreamer when I was a kid - probably because my broader community wasn't particularly nourishing and engaging, and so it seems I ingrained a habit of removing myself from the present. Maybe this is why I drift off so easily...

Anyway, the way I try to work with it is of course bringing my focus back to the breath when I notice it has gone. Otherwise I now have conviction in the following, from Charlotte Joko Beck in Everyday Zen (2008), since it has manifested in my own mindfulness practice, p6:

I don’t think that we ever let go of anything. I think what we do is just wear things out. If we start forcing our mind to do something, we are right back into the dualism that we are trying to get out of. The best way to let go is to notice the thoughts as they come up and to acknowledge them. “Oh, yes, I’m doing that one again”—and without judging, return to the clear experience of the present moment. Just be patient. We might have to do it ten thousand times, but the value for our practice is the constant return of the mind into the present, over and over and over. Don’t look for some wonderful place where thoughts won’t occur. Since the thoughts basically are not real, at some point they get dimmer and less imperative and we will find there are periods when they tend to fade out because we see they are not real. They will just wither away in time without our quite knowing how it happened. Those thoughts are our attempt to protect ourselves. None of us really wants to give them up; they are what we are attached to. The way we can eventually see their unreality is by just letting the movie run. After we have seen the same movie five hundred times it gets boring, frankly!

And that's it - the movie becomes boring, and then one can move onto 'harvesting' the tension and negative thoughts associated with directly facing boredom. One simply just needs to "do it", like Jon Kabat-Zinn says, to reach that point, however, and that means plenty of time practicing mindfulness - especially when physically still.

[JonW]

Brilliant post, BioSattva.

[Gareth]

Ever tried breath counting? That used to really help me a lot in the beginning.

[Steve]

Don't worry about drifting off it happens to everyone. When you notice you have drifted off, just gently bring yourself back to whatever you are focussing on. The more you drift off, the more you can bring yourself back - and so your practice is even more effective.

It can be hard to know how long you have drifted off for, was it 5 secs, 5 mins, 20 mins - these all happen - it doesn't matter just be patient with yourself and gently bring your self back when you do notice.

In classes sometimes, teachers recommend some breathing exercises and/or yoga at the beginning as a way of helping settle the mind down a bit.

Or try some guided meditations - your mind may find it easier to keep listening rather than 'daydreaming'.

It's good to share our experiences/problems as we nearly always find that others experience the same.

Keep practising!

Steve

[piedwagtail91]

hi monkey mind,
it sounds just like my experiences, and the experiences of many others that i've spoken with, when i started and i still get lots and lots of days like that.
for me it was a case of just keep meditating.
as someone says 'there's no such thing as bad meditation'.
it's not mind wander that we're trying to eliminate it's developing an awareness of that mind wander.
it does come with practice.
i try to look at it like this.
using a shopping, supermarket analogy.
when i started mindfulness and meditation,i could mind wander around the entire supermarket getting a weeks shopping and be queuing up to pay for before i realised that my mind had wandered.
after a few weeks i may only have got as far as the cornflakes before i realised.
after a couple of months i might only have got to the fruit and veg (that's our local morrisons layout!! disclaimer - there are other stores with different layouts )
my mind still wanders but i (sometimes) become aware more quickly.
have you tried any of the guided meditations?
that quiet voice in the background can help to keep you focused on the breath or sounds , until your awareness grows.
i think the main thing is to give yourself credit for noticing the mind wander and not feel bad or judge yourself when you notice that wander.

if you meditate for 15 minutes and notice that your mind has wandered a 100 times, that's a brilliant practice, because you've become 'aware' 100 times.
that's not to say meditating and only having 1 instance of mind wander is bad!
i have to admit to having only one instance of mind wander on many occaisions , usually from start to finish!
i think the more you learn the more you realise just how little you know and how much there is still to learn.
take it slowly and be kind to yourself.

[Gareth]

it's not mind wander that we're trying to eliminate it's developing an awareness of that mind wander.

A most excellent post Mick; I particularly like the above.

[piedwagtail91]

thanks gareth,
i have to admit i really struggled in the beginning.
when i finally got my head round it my therapist, who's now my mentor, sent me the 'surfer dude' that i use for my avatar because i'd finally learnt to 'ride the waves of emotions and sensations' !
i could lose the scuba gear that i'd been using up until then