The Ultimate Meditation Technique; Stick With It

It took me many years before I managed to make meditation a regular part of my day. And continuing to do so always requires an ongoing effort. I'm sure it's even the same for the Dalai Lama.

When we meditate, we allow ourselves time with the innermost emotions, thoughts and feelings inside. We don’t employ them for this or that purpose, we simply watch them. It’s the difference between driving a car and being a passenger. We are so used to driving our lives this way and that, that we find the practice of just sitting and observing so alien.

The reason we find meditation so hard, what ever meditation technique we use, is that a part of us – whether you call it the ego, the outer self or the lower self (although I tend to avoid the latter as no part of ourselves is higher or lower than another) – is intensely involved in the world. It lives in and feeds off the constant vicissitudes of existence. Like a soap opera addict, it never sees beyond the dramas of life. This is an inevitable and necessary part of all of us as, without it, we’d be ineffective in this world. What is also necessary, however, is the ability to sometimes take a step outside of the merry-go-round and just be. Just feel. Just know. And just watch. You don’t have to turn it into your whole life – you just need windows, but the world based self will always keep dragging you back to the next most important thing. From the perspective of the ego, everything is important and it all needs attention right now. And sometimes we fall for it.

When you meditate you realize that it doesn’t, but remembering that and extricating yourself from the constant whirlwind will, necessarily, always be a constant struggle.

That's why the ultimate meditation technique is, in its essence, simple; just stick with it.

Easier said than done, I know.