We’ve all experienced meditation laziness. Meditation laziness happens when we become distracted, have wandering thoughts, become tired, or even fall asleep. Meditation laziness happens because your concentration is weak. Meditation is all about your concentration power and the energy you put into concentration. If you concentrate correctly, it takes little power to do so, but for beginners it takes up all your power to focus your concentration.
Meditation sometimes gets boring. It gets boring counting or watching your breath (Anapanasati). Even if you’re trying out Vipassana it can get tiring and boring after a while. It’s not usually a good idea to switch from one meditation technique to another without mastering the first technique first. So if you haven’t mastered Anapanasati, any other technique you try to do after that is going to be hard and even more boring. Techniques stop becoming boring once you’ve mastered them. You can say you’ve mastered Anapanasati when you get to the point of awareness without having to count or follow your breath. When you just know you are breathing, when you’re aware your breath is long, short, fast, slow. If and when you finally get to that point, you’re getting in a place of “mastering” the technique.
Meditation is also about awareness. Your concentration feeds your awareness, and your awareness feeds your concentration. Unless you’ve been meditating for a while, Anapanasati can be difficult and Vispassana even more difficult. Instead, just become aware. Sit comfortably, breathe normally, and become aware. The easiest awareness exercise you can do is being aware of sounds. Not only sounds of your body, but be aware of the clock ticking, the hum from your computer or TV or any other electronic device, the birds chirping, any sounds of squeaking, people walking outside, cars, animals, anything that makes a sound, be aware of the sound and note it in your mind of the sound you heard.
Being aware, whether of sounds, feelings, or anything else, helps develop your concentration. You want to build your concentration. You can develop your concentration from all these sounds you’re being aware of, to shortening the different awarenesses to just one thing. You want to develop Samadhi; one-pointedness of mind. Samadhi is very difficult to achieve, but once you have, you’ve gone from being aware of everything, to one thing, to eventually nothing. Nothing is Samatha; the quiet, calmness of the mind. It is in this state where you can find the Self, contemplate Emptiness, and find liberation.
There are many techniques and exercises to get out of laziness during meditation. A simple technique is to think about and contemplate on a specific topic or idea. It’s usually during meditation that I think over all my blog entries, ideas, examples, etc. You can also reflect on things you read or experienced. Other ways is to chant. Chanting mantras, of even a whole sutra if you’ve memorized it, is actually a technique of Enlightenment. When chanting, at first you want to focus on the words, listening to the sounds, feel them as they hum off your lips. Then focus on the meaning and what it means to you, listen to it. Don’t just superficially listen to it, but really listen to it! Let it penetrate you and swim in your mind as it contemplates what it truly means.
For me, the best way to develop concentration and awareness is Anapanasati. Watching and counting my breath has been the easiest way to get out of meditation laziness. Though, sometimes that gets tiresome eventually. So I change it up a little bit. Still being mindful of the breath, you just change areas of concentration. In traditional Anapanasati practice, you stay mindful of the breath entering and exiting your nose; you feel and be mindful of the breath going in and out, if the air is warm or cool, etc. So when I change it up, I move the concentration from the nose, to the back of the mouth (feel the air going in and out at the back of the mouth/tongue), then move to the throat (feeling the air go in and out your throat), and finally feel the air go in and out of your lungs. Focus on each of these areas for at least 3-5 breaths, then work backwards and repeat. The point is to specifically feel the air in each of these areas; feel the air go in and out at the tip of your nose, feel it go in and out at the back of your mouth/tongue, feel it go in and out in your throat, and feel the air go in and out in your lungs. This technique helps when you’re starting to doze off or feel lazy. Keeping your awareness and concentration up, keeps you up!
Smile and be well!