The Fickle practitioner… who likes to do all the techniques… all at the same time

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This topic has been part of a conversation that started in my house since I came up with the idea for this series. Both of us are dedicated meditation practitioners. Both of us started our meditation journeys in very different ways. And both of us are evolving in different ways but with common themes. So we have some varying opinions and thoughts to consider here. I'll be giving all of it to you here.....

The topic of technique is a little more difficult in that there are MANY techniques that will bring about the myriad of health benefits as well as results of quieting the mind and bringing peace. I’m not going to tell you what technique to go for. I believe it’s best if you select the technique that resonates the most with you (not because it resonates with your friend or partner). This means that you might need to do some research to find what suits you and what feels “right” for you.  The benefit of taking this time at the start is that you will be more prone to stick with it because it was selected consciously to align to your own needs and desires.

Why is that important?  Well, it will take time for you to become proficient with the technique and therefore it will take time for it to have the result that you desire. We talked about consistency last week, here, and consistency in practicing a technique is also important.

This is where I'd like to present some different perspectives. You can try these thoughts on and see how they feel. 

Casey just read a book by Osho, wherein Osho says to try each of the meditation practices in the book for three consecutive days. The belief here is that, if it’s the right one for you, if you are truly dedicated in the practice for three days, you’ll make a good amount of progress within only three days. On the other hand, if it’s not for you, you won’t and you’ll move on.

If you know who Osho is, you’ll understand why I feel very reluctant to go against his thoughts on that. And I do understand it intuitively. If the energy of the practice is an energetic fit for you, you’ll know it and it will have an impact. In three days.

However, I do want to point out that Casey has been practicing Goenka Vipassana for many years. His set point going into trying a new technique every three days is different from the set point of someone new to meditation entirely. And this is what I want to point out here.

Finding a technique that resonates and that can become the backbone of your meditation practice is important. In my opinion, once you are proficient in a technique, it becomes easier to try others and achieve results.

Why do I think this?

For most of us, accessing the realms of consciousness that are accessed via meditation is not part of our lives UNTIL we begin to meditate. It takes a certain level of proficiency and achievement in your meditation practice to get to the point that you are doing so on a consistent basis. This, again, in my opinion, is where we begin to access the tremendous benefits from a mind, body, spirit perspective of meditation. This is when we arise from our cushion feeling calmer, more centered, alert, and tapped in.

So, without an existing practice and existing proficiency in a technique, I believe that jumping from technique to technique is going to prolong this even further. If you have a specific goal or desired outcome of your practice, this could be detrimental.

The best way to master a technique is to make a commitment to yourself and work daily to master it. If you’ve already started your practice, you know that it is definitely a commitment. And mostly, the reason I see for people breaking their commitment is not seeing progress or feeling that they aren’t doing it right (I touched on this in the first post, here).

For those of you who have an on-again off-again relationship with meditation, next week we’ll talk about bringing Compassion into your practice, and why it’s a game changer. You might decide afterward to be on-again.

As I wrote this post, I realized that there are a couple of topics I haven’t really hit yet. So lucky us! There will be two bonus blog posts in this series:

  • What about Guided Meditations?
  • Why all the talk about meditation in the first place?!

Missed a post in this series? Check out the below links: 

Until next week, Happy Sitting!