Meditation reflection - begin again

I've tried to meditate off and on for the last decade. It hasn't really stuck yet, but that's not to say it will never stick.

I've been thinking a lot about spirituality this year. A friend suggested to try meditation and sent me a gift subscription to Waking Up. I'm fairly familiar with the mental wellness app landscape, but this is one that I never thought to try until now.

One of the experiences it gets right is a slow on-ramp into the practice of meditation through their 28-day Introductory Course. It gracefully exposes you to the different nuances and challenges that appear when meditating, like background sounds, restlessness, and loss of focus.

Early on in the course, Sam Harris introduces two ideas that have stuck with me.

Begin again. We're human and fallible. It's expected that you will fall off the practice or lose focus during a session. That's okay. Take a beat, and just begin again. Restart the count, or the in-out cycle. This concept applies to so much more than meditation too. Having a conversation go sideways? You can just begin again. Having a not so great exercise session? You can just begin again. Haven't ridden your bike to work in months? You can just begin again.

Disruptions during meditation. I always tried meditation where it's quiet, but in one session, he talks about how people have written in saying he speaks too much during the session and this disrupts focus. His suggestion is that with a strong practice, it should just be yet another thought that you observe and move on. I commute mostly by public transit (ferry, BART, or bus). I've started to use the moments to practice meditating. It's incredibly distracting and it's usually when my mind is starting to ramp into work mode too. I think by doing this though I might have a stronger and more practical foundation for mindfulness.

So here I am, restarting a meditation practice yet again.

Maybe this time it will stick. All I had to do was begin again.