Obstacles To Practise

While meditation is a wonderful thing and brings many benefits, there are some obstacles that arise that often cause people to ether stop their practise or even not to start meditation at all. I will explain some of these obstacles or myths, in the hope of allowing more people to start meditation or to overcome obstacles to aid their practise.

One of the myths about meditation, is that you need to be able to concentrate lots. I have spoken with some lovely people who believe that they cannot meditate due to suffering from over active minds caused by anxiety, depression or phobias. I believe that these conditions are heightened senses that cause us suffering and meditation can indeed help with these. You see, concentration during meditation is one of the key things you are aiming to improve so as long as you are able to concentrate just a tiny little bit, you are able to improve this. So start small with your meditation and build on what you have.

One of the other things that people suffer with during meditation is sleepiness or drowsiness, this happens to a lot of meditation practitioners. There are some remedies to this obstacle.

• First try to meditate with your eyes slightly open. This may be a little uncomfortable to start with but you will get use to it and this should keep you more alert during your meditation.
• Try to keep your back straight during your meditation as this will keep you more alert. Lying down or having your legs up will make you more prone to falling asleep.
•  Often people feel that where they meditate needs to be dimly lit to allow calmness of mind, however this can cause you to feel sleepy or drowsy, so try making the room as bright as possible as this will make you more alert before and during the meditation.

When people first start doing meditation they often stop as they feel that it is not doing anything or is making them feel worse. The reason for this, is due to the fact that you are finally taking the time to see your mind, and this raises your awareness to how crazy the mind really is. Jumping from one subject to the other, all day, every day, with no real break. So being aware of this more, is bound to make you feel that you’re going backwards, however this is completely normal and is a sign that you are progressing well. Once you become more aware of your thoughts you will then be able to start controlling your thoughts. The most important thing with your mediation practise is to keep going and not to let any kind of obstacle upset you as this will hinder your progression. If you feel that your mind is drifting from the subject of mediation a lot, just calmly keep bringing the mind back to the subject. Understand that your mind has been programmed for many years to keep jumping from object to object, so getting your mind to stay on one subject will take a lot of determination and hard work, but the results are so worth it.