What Can Help Me Meditate?

“What can help me meditate?” This honest question has been asked of us here at the Inward Bound Network many times and in many different ways. For instance, many report that their mind is “too busy”, and meditation is often frustrating. Others report that their lives are “too busy” and finding the time to sit in practice is near impossible. Still there are some who can persist in their commitment to meditation only to find that their initial success doesn’t last, and their enthusiasm diminishes.

So, the answer to the question, “What can help me meditate?” depends on the issue you are trying to work through. There are as many problems and obstacles as there people who practice, but there is a “root” problem that gives rise to your special issue or challenge.

Ignorance – believing the impermanent to be permanent

That root problem is the ego’s ingrained habit of wanting everything to remain the same. This may sound counter-intuitive because there is often a side of us that welcomes a change. It is this very dynamic between pairs of opposites that the ego uses to keep the status quo.

Not only does the ego or personality resist change, but it has two fundamental strategies it deploys to try to keep the upper hand. It is generally successful at this too! The reason for its success is that it, the ego, always sees itself as the center-of-the-universe. It is the subject, the one that truly matters and everything else and everyone else is seen as an object.

Help with meditation begins when you discover that everything is impermanent.

Regardless of the obstacle you encounter in trying to meditate, the root of it will be related to this need on the part of the ego to resist change and maintain its grip on the familiar. Even when we are successful at making a change, the ego merely adopts it and says, “See, I knew I could do it. Aren’t I clever and special?” It is inevitable, but we should not be discouraged by this.

Embrace these routines of the ego with wry humor. After all, the ego is not separate from your essential self, and it is not your enemy. Make friends with it. It is the very nature of the ego’s polarity that will allow you to go beyond it into the source of Wisdom and Compassion, your own Intrinsic Mind or Basic Nature which is Goodness. Call it what you will, meditation is the path that will take you “there”.

Desire – wanting something to make us happy or feel good

The power of desire is considerable. It is a thought that is propelled by the emotion of need or want. The degree of that “want” determines its power or potency. In extreme cases, desires can be obsessions. But, beneath the emotion, and behind the thought is the motivation to be happy.

Why do you want to meditate? Is your desire to meditate based on wanting to get something that you feel is missing from your life. Being clear on what you want through a meditation practice can help you through the times when you get distracted or discouraged from the routine of meditation. At the root of your interest in meditation is the desire for happiness.

Once a person discovers the futility of expecting external things, people, situations, or conditions to create happiness, the inward quest can begin.

All beings want to be happy, and this desire for happiness is really a yearning for love. It is the need for love that ultimately leads individuals to the spiritual path. Once a person discovers the futility of expecting external things, people, situations, or conditions to create happiness, the inward quest can begin.

Aversion (resistance) – not wanting things that upset us

The opposite of desire is aversion. Just as desire is a powerful attracting force, aversion is just as potent in repelling people, things or situations that we want to avoid, and even annihilate in our life. For example, think of a few of your own aversions. What do you think about smoking, obesity, snobs, conspicuous consumption, or racism? If you had absolute power to have things, “your way” what would you do?

Aversion is another reason people have difficulty sustaining a meditation practice. Some people rebel against structure, any kind of routine or simply what may at times be boring. The practice of meditation has many pluses but there are also down-sides to it. When the down-sides outweigh the positives, aversion can kick in. Like, “why did I think I wanted to meditate? I hate sitting still, doing nothing.”

The power of aversion comes from loves opposite which is hatred. Just as desire is the power of self-centered or selfish love, aversion is emotional love in reverse. The ego uses aversion to skillfully manage the status quo and maintain its role at the center of its world. The ego exists as a separated self because it occupies the space between the pairs of opposites. When one transcends any pair of opposites, for example good and bad, right and wrong, the result is an expansion in consciousness. In that moment, the ego loses ground.

Love – breaks the grip of the ego and creates real change

An emotion, it is actually an energy, a principle of creation itself. As an energy, love has a field, like a magnet. The energy of love relates everything to every other thing in its field. It is the reason why love gives rise to feelings such as awe in the face of beauty, or becomes inspired by the life story of people like Mahatma Gandhi or Kailash Satyarthi, who at age 17, became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace.

Growth and development, whether it is an individual, a nation or all of humanity occurs when something new is introduced and causes a person or people to adapt, reevaluate, and to expand the periphery of their former boundaries. During these growth spurts, the ego disappears in a sense. During a spiritual awakening for example, people often say the ego is transcended.

“What can help you meditate is more love”.

This process of growth, stabilization, crystallization and expansion is the key to a successful meditation practice. It is also the key to learning all things and being successful in any undertaking. In conclusion, “What can help you meditate is more love”.

Need Help with Starting Meditation?

If you are new to meditation, be sure to check out our How to Mediate Properly series. This is a beginners guide to establishing a meditation practice. Offering concise, easy to follow instructions.

Recommended Beginner’s Meditations

Watching the Mind Meditation - As we endeavor to keep the mind focused on the mind itself we begin to see that the nature of mind is not our thoughts, rather the nature of mind is awareness.

Mindfulness Breathing Meditation - This meditation introduces the fundamentals of mindfulness meditation. We begin by taming the mind by observing thoughts and trying not to let ourselves attach to them. After a while we can start training the mind to remain open, still and spacious.

Loving Yourself Meditation - A guided meditation to cultivate a deeper sense of self-love and self-acceptance by transforming those beliefs about ourselves that are holding us separate from love.