I guess it all depends on what you’re doing it for. And what the “it” is.
Going to the gym once a week is a great way to keep up your bodily health and fitness, flexibility and strength. If you’re looking to improve any of these things, then maybe going to a class twice a week is a good idea – or combining your training with some yoga.
But when you’re wanting to develop a deeper understanding of mindfulness and meditation, having a daily practice is very important. But why?
Did you ever learn to play a musical instrument when you were at school? Learn how to do keepie-ups with a football? Learn how to touch-type? Like learning any difficult skill, practising a little every day gets you a lot further than doing a big blast of it once in a while. If your hamstrings are tight, a daily physical yoga practice with lots of forward bends will work wonders to loosen them up and help your posture. If your concentration skills are poor, then a daily meditation practice of counting the breath will gradually enable you to hold your mind still on something for longer and longer periods.
So a little every day improves our skill, but is that the only reason?
Why of course not! How about patience? Going to a workshop on hip opening might really help you sit cross-legged that evening - but it won't be lasting, and you might end up a little sore. It takes time, gentleness, and patience to let those tight areas open up.
Committing to a daily practice brings also us up against all those times when we don’t feel like it, don’t feel well enough, or we’re so busy that there’s no time.
In my 8-week courses in mindfulness we make a commitment at the beginning to practice every day for the whole 8 weeks. One of the most common questions I get is: if one day I really don’t want to or just don’t find the right time, is it ok to miss that day? Of course you can miss a day – I’m not going to chase you up and make you do your practice! But what an incredible missed opportunity it would be.
Why don’t you want to? What are you finding hard? Where are the resistances? Instead of finding every excuse not to practice, why not practice with a spirit of compassion, patience, inquisitiveness, curiosity? Face those resistances head on and you might find they start to dissolve – or perhaps aren’t as powerful as you thought they were.
Another question that comes up: if I force myself to do my practice when I really don’t want to, won’t I start building up an unhealthy association with it?
True, if you’re forcing yourself to do something you don’t want to, then you'll end up resenting it, resenting your teacher, or hating the practice. But the question to ask is if it’s really something you don’t want to do. Hopefully you can see the benefits of doing the practice (or I guess you wouldn’t be doing it) – so why do you think it wouldn’t benefit you today?
A sustained daily practice also makes you aware of the cycles of ups and downs in your life – day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month. Your practice is like a constant light, illuminating your mood, feelings, body and mind state. Without this, these very normal fluctuations can easily go unnoticed. One day you might wake up bright and full of energy, confident you can run 10 miles; other days you might feel sore, down in your mood, not wanting to get out of bed.
And why is it important to become more aware of these up and down changes? Because then we can start making that connection between our yoga/meditation practice and our everyday lives. Developing that awareness of how we feel right now can help a great deal in our relationships, and knowing how best to manage our lives, what we eat, etc.
Another aspect of life that daily practice helps us to cultivate is that of acknowledging change. Every day when you come to your yoga mat or meditation cushion, you are different. Life is a flow, everything changes all the time – moment-to-moment. Just because I can't sit cross-legged today doesn't mean it'll always be like this. Just because I have a good range of movement in all my limbs now doesn't mean I'll always have this. Yes I can remember what I did yesterday, but one day I may not. Nothing remains the same. Practise every day and you'll see how obvious this is, but also how the subtle strands of our disbelief of this fact take years of practice to break down.
Meditation is a bit like walking out on a very misty day. Although it's not actually raining, after a while of being out you can get very wet.
-- Brian Thompson
