Life’s been busy as of late, ranging from dental work to work-work, to people needing rides, along with insufferable temperatures and Full Metal Assault Pollen. It’s been quite a few weeks of eventfulness.
So sometimes, I find I don’t take the time to meditate as much as I’d like. I have a good routine, but when life was anything but routine, I tried to set up a maintenance mode. What’s the “basic” meditation routine I can keep to stay in the groove.
So I found the very basics I could do in the case of utter disruption, and did them. No matter what else, from airline flights to having to turn my salads into smoothies, I did them. The key thing was to do something, no matter my other limits, if only for a few minutes, every day.
At first I did this out of a kind of diffuse guilt mixed with the idea that I should at least have some kind of continuity. Eventually I realized this made a lot of sense – and actually helped my meditation.
Committing to “at least maintenance” takes pressure off of me. And by pressure off of me, I mean I stop pressuring myself. Not only am I pushing myself less, I’m realizing how much I pushed myself to meditate. I “get into it” more.
Doing “maintenance meditation” keeps up the sense of practice and awareness of what I’m doing. I might not be doing as much as I’d like but I’m keeping the right mindset and any learning or improved techniques stick with me. I also think without the self-pressure, the experiences “settle in” more.
I also found I tried to meditate “better” with these limits, trying to do it right, and asking what mattered. Sure, there was a little pressure on myself, but in times I “got” what mattered in my meditation.
Finally, and this surprised me, the above meant that my meditations were, I guess you could say, more fulfilling. Because the pressure is off, because I have that consistent awareness, it seems they go better when do them in full or in part. It shocked me, but because I wasn’t thinking about meditation, I was doing the best I could, a whole catalog of pathological behaviors became reduced.
So now, I found meditating less I means I meditated better. Go figure.
I’m enjoying being back in my routine more or less. Because it’s something I’m more intimate with, more happy with, and understand on a deeper level. I suppose routine is good, but dealing with life is sometimes the best meditation.