On meditation

What I have learnt from a 5 year daily meditation practice

Meditation is subtle but life changing. The positive changes in your life creep up on you and it’s usually only when you look back you realise how far you have come. It does this with no fanfare, no overnight transformation, but with a small consistent daily practice. Like a pension, the longer you stick to it, the greater the rewards in the long run. It took a couple of months before I noticed the first small positive changes, but five years later it continues to change my life.

It took me a long time to get to the point where I was meditating daily. Thich Nhat Han calls it the ‘flip flop’ stage when you first try to practice; sometimes you will meditate three times a week, and then the next week none at all. But as Thich explains, the most important thing is to keep planting the seed, every time you meditate you are reinforcing the positive habit, and eventually if the intention is there, you’ll lay the groundwork for a daily practice. Sometimes the bad moments in life force your hand, when you’re backed into a corner and you have no choice; that is when positive changes are most likely to happen. It is the gift of our wounds.

Meditation really has changed my life. When I first started, I was directionless, without a real purpose, not knowing where I was going or what I wanted to do. Alcohol dictated my weeks, and my anxiety was stopping me from growing and being open to new opportunities, I was stuck. Although my life is very far from being perfect, I at least have more of an idea of where I want to go and who I want to be. From being able to calm myself I was able to be more open to what my real passion and drive is in life. And that I found last year to be writing. Meditation on its own won't solve everything, there is still a necessity for inquiry to solve life's problems, but meditation makes it easier. The anxiety I once had no longer makes my decisions for me, which allows me to make better choices about my relationships, career and opportunities in life.

When I bring up meditation, people will often say that they can't meditate and they're not the type of person who is able to do it. I think that some people have an idea of meditation as having a mind completely free of thought, and only then are they truly meditating. But the reality is, at least from my experience, that being able to drop into a calm practice each time you meditate is something that takes many years to reach. This does not mean however that you are not meditating until you reach 'no thoughts'. The intention of going back to the point of focus is the real practice of meditation. Even now five years on, I rarely fall into a calm state of mind where I am able to focus for long periods of time; my mind still wanders regularly. The changes in my life reassure me on bad days that the practice is working. As long as I have the intention to focus and show up every day I know I am going in the right direction.

Feelings of sadness, anger and fear are normal sensations that arise from letting go. When I first started practicing and I felt these emotions come up, my reaction was that meditation wasn't working, and I was somehow doing something wrong. Now when I notice them, I am reassured that I am on the right path, a step further to letting go of the past. As the great Theravada Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield said, 'You haven't begun practicing until you have cried many times'. This can be from unresolved grief or trauma, which can be at times difficult to experience, but it’s a necessary step on the path of emotional healing. For me mediation was the only practice that really has helped me deal with my problems at a deeper level.

I notice that some days no matter how hard I try, I cannot quieten the thoughts in my head, but that's okay. Over time you realise you have good and bad days, but the most important thing is the intention to go back to the point of focus. Each time you do, you are slowly calming the mind and building resilience, one breath at a time. When you make the decision to practice you are strengthening the pathways that allow you to better deal with stress and life's problems. Part of meditation is learning to ride the wave, realising that your life will never be completely stable but your reaction to it can be.