Why is it that people stop meditating?

[Mal_Smith]

I've been meditating on and off for forty years. My main reason for stopping, I think, is that it works! If you are pursuing MBSR and you get to a place where you don't feel stressed, then why continue to pursue Mindfulness? The effects seem to last, so a few months after stopping you may still be feeling OK. But some time later you'll probably find yourself feeling a bit down one day, and then (if you're lucky...) start meditating again. I think I'm now at the stage where I know my mood will dip, and will keep meditating, even though I'm feeling "up" at the moment.

[JonW]

"If you are pursuing MBSR and you get to a place where you don't feel stressed, then why continue to pursue Mindfulness?"

I can think of a million reasons to continue mindfulness practice, regardless of whether I'm stressed or not.
The practice enhances my life in innumerable ways.
Jon

[piedwagtail91]

I have to agree with Jon.
When I was bike racing I didn't put a lot of training in to get fit enough to race and then stop training, my fitness would disappear.
For me it's the same with meditation.
After years of meditating with the difficulties of depression and anxiety and life in general to now be able to sit when I already feel calm and at peace is great, to sit in stillness brings is own rewards for me.

[jdandre]

I agree with the previous posts, but I'm glad Mal made that comment. It highlights the two ways you can look at mindfulness and meditation:

1.) It's an item on your "todo list," or another chore to add into your day; or
2.) It's a way of being.

I, of course, take the latter view. I think the former view lends itself to - at best - people thinking it's a spot fix for a particular condition when it happens. At worst, it causes people to try a few times and give up because they "don't get" meditating.

If you approach it as a way of being, however, you recognize that your mind is compulsive and it creates most of the struggles you deal with every day. At that point, you know you have two choices: (1) indulge in all the mental noise, or (2) let the mental noise be as it is, independent from you and your attention.

#2 is mindfulness and meditation from a way of being perspective!

[piedwagtail91]

2 for me ☺

[JonW]

I often meet people who resort to meditation when they're having a tough time and then allow the practice to lapse when they're feeling perkier.
Why wait until it starts raining before you attend to the leaks in your roof?
I'm with jdandre. I see meditation as a way of being, not something I use to fix the problems in my life.
Jon

[Gareth]

Sign me up for a number 2 also.

[Mal_Smith]

My latest foray into meditation is an attempt to cure myself of internet chess addiction. First I had to determine what it was that was bad about internet chess, if anything (!)

Glancing at a book by a top meditator made it very clear to me what was wrong with it. B Alan Wallace suggests* that chess (and air traffic control!) provide stability of attention and excitement ("vividness", as he calls it.) So I got from internet chess what I used to get from meditation, more easily and with greater superficial excitement. But with one big difference, in chess (and air traffic control!) you experience a large amount of stress, while in meditation you experience profound relaxation. So I decided to replace chess with meditation... so far so good...

My stop-start approach to meditation keeps on happening - my previous foray into meditation was to try to cure tinnutus and sinus headaches (it worked!), previously I've used to try and counter work related stress & "the blues" (it worked!)

Maybe I can now get it into my thick skull to keep on doing it... indeed keeping the roof maintained when it is isn't raining...

Remember the Buddha told the story about encountering an old man, and a sick man, and that drove him to develop and continue the practice of mediation. Old & sick, that's us, if not today, then certainly tomorrow. Start hammering nails into that roof!

*Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic: A Manifesto for the Mind Sciences
By B. Alan Wallace

[Brad]

I often meet people who resort to meditation when they're having a tough time and then allow the practice to lapse when they're feeling perkier.
Why wait until it starts raining before you attend to the leaks in your roof?
I'm with jdandre. I see meditation as a way of being, not something I use to fix the problems in my life.
Jon

I'd be supremely impressed if you've so far removed yourself from the neuroses of being a human being that you really don't know why people delay action on any number of things that they could be doing but aren't yet urgent!

[JonW]

But I didn't claim that I removed myself from the neuroses of being a human being, only that I don't meditate to fix myself.
Jon