Session 039: How To Become A Meditator

How To Become A Meditator

Dhamma Talk + Guided Meditation
Session 039: Sep 30th, 2020, by Sophia Ojha Ensslin and Cristof Ensslin

Banner Photo by Jasper Boer - Thank you!

Handout

This week we have prepared a multi-page handout for you. It is posted left/below as blog content. Plus, you can download it as PDF by clicking on the following button:

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Becoming a Meditator Through Daily Actions

A few years ago, we went to Boise, Idaho for a conference and heard the author James Clear speak. He was talking about building new habits and about making incremental 1% changes each day. And I watched his talk again this morning and heard him say this quote:

“The way to becoming something is by doing that [some] thing.” - James Clear

He says, “The goal is not to read a book, but become a reader. The goal is not to run a marathon, but become a runner. The goal is not to write a book, but to become a writer.”

How do you become a meditator?

You meditate every day.

That’s how you become anything - by doing it repeatedly, says James Clear.

Then my question to you is not ‘did you meditate last week?’, but ‘are you a meditator?’. It is not about meditating once in a while but becoming a meditator. And you become a meditator by doing it over and over again, repeatedly, because that’s also how you gain the benefits.

So if you want to be a meditator, and you know that you must meditate daily, what is stopping you from doing so?

Here are some challenges that you may face in building a meditation habit and potential solutions:

| Start Over Again and Again
One of the challenges in doing something daily is simply that it’s a new habit and building new habits takes time. And in the process of building this new habit, we may miss a day. But that’s not so important. What’s important is to start again and to start over and over again. Meaning if you want to build a new habit but keep missing out, then just start again at the next opportunity. Have a giant wall calendar in which you can mark your progress each day.

| Become the Master of Your Environment
Ask yourself is there something in my environment that is the obstacle. What can I change about my environment to make it more conducive to my building my meditation habit? Then go make those changes and test it out to see how that helps

| Become a Master of Your Day
Is your day so full and overwhelming that you can’t find time? Or is your day mixed with things that are not important but you easily fill up your time with it because it’s right in front of you. Take charge of your day. Clear out your schedule to make room for what’s really important to you.

| Get Clear about What’s Truly Important
Now the reason your day is out of control could be that you are not clear about what’s truly important to you. Do this exercise that I share about the process of finding out what’s truly important or take a look at these very useful questions that Leo Babauta asks about what’s important in this article.

| Ask Yourself What Else Could Be Stopping Me
It may be that there are other reasons hidden beneath deeper layers that are stopping you from meditating daily and building that daily habit. Ask yourself introspective questions to get to the bottom of those layers so you can start dissolving them by simply getting aware. Simple awareness is a powerful healer - just like a ray of light that brightens up whatever it falls on, putting the light of awareness on an issue, heals it simply because of the light of awareness has fallen upon it. Try it!

To accomplish that, here are a few introspective questions to start you of. Pick one of them or all and write down what arises for you:
1. What is really stopping me from meditating daily? And what else? And what else?
2. What are my concerns about meditating every day? What other concerns are there?
3. How can I help myself to build this practice daily? What can I do to help myself?
4. What if I didn’t build this practice in my life, how would my life look like in six months?
5. What needs to change in my way of thinking so that this habit can become a reality?
6. How would things look different if I had developed a daily meditation habit in six months or a year?

These questions will help bring light to your deeper fears, concerns and obstacles. And some may dissolve right there and other answers will guide you to a path so that you can meditate daily and become a meditator.

Become a meditator. Meditate daily.

Love,
Sophia + Cristof