Just Sit!
Just Sit!
It is difficult to practice because, our idea about practice is separate from our ordinary living. However, this is normal in everything, practice starts from difficulty that is why it is called practice. for example Michael Jordan, do you think that he just practice easily? He underwent lots and lots of time to practice and the fruits of it is he became the greatest basketball player of all time. From gymnastics, all sports for olympics, do you think these players reach that stage because of a lousy practice? i don't think so. they have practice as if they would die if they cannot practice. but meditation? it is difficult because it is not a physical practice but a practice on how to train the mind. Now where is the mind? you see right there that we have difficulty already because we do not know how to practice and trained the mind. Can you imagine the practice that we are going to do is to practice not to do anything? how can you weigh this kind of idea? how can i practice this thing that is not doing anything? For example, just sit and be mindful, aware to your breath. do not move for a couple of minutes, hours and for monks they just sit without doing anything, just being mindful of their breath for not just hours but days. wow! just sit, doing nothing, be mindful of breath for days? this is ridiculous and seems impossible. but it's not, they are actual, you can see and hear that there are monks who mastered this thing called meditation. it is totally against our habits, the way we normally viewed life because we are being brought up, educated to achieve, to act, to move to reach etc etc, to have and to hold. and that is why to practice not to move, think, not to act is difficult because these are not the usual kind of thing that we have been brought into. However, even if we understood that to practice is important but only through intellect, still these would not make us mastered meditation. To practice meditation is to actually sit and be mindful of the breath. that is all there is no alibi, no explanation. just sit that is all.