15 minutes of Meditation

Recently, I have started to consistently meditate for 15 minutes every morning. I do miss those good old days where I used to meditate for an hour, now a days stuck between Conference calls and morning emails – it has become more of a luxury. So, I decided a new practice of just 15 minutes every day after I take my shower. There are many many ways you can meditate – but the one I follow is simple process of watching my breath. Here are some things I found out and wanted to share with everyone.

1. Expect roadblocks – it’s like the whole world is conspiring against you to stop you from meditating. You will have a work emergency, someone calls and something obviously breaks down.
2. Expect Physical uncomfortableness – Your chin would itch. You might fart. Your stomach would grumble etc. Please don’t try to stop it. Just become aware of it.
3. Expect Crazy thoughts – in like 5 minutes you will start to feel like, you have been meditating for 15 years. You would be like “Enough Already”
4. Expect random and crazy thoughts – It’s like your mind (actually ego) gets trapped in a box and starts to throw around all those fears, crazy thoughts etc towards you. Don’t panic. Just come back to your meditation, by bringing your focus back to your breath.
5. Perfection – This is the single most reason why I stopped meditating in the past. I was like, if I can’t be perfect and meditate for 1 hour – I don’t want to do it for 15 mins. There is no logic behind that thinking. Except that my Ego has trapped me into this paradox where I want to meditate, but because of my perfect scenario not available to me I refuse to do it.
6. Failure – There is no failure. It’s a mental construct. You can’t fail at this. No one is watching you. No judgment. There is not single way to fail at this. However if you do it consistently, you will get better and better at focusing.

This is what I have observed once I start to be consistent in it:

1. I am more poised during the day
2. There is this point of view, which is hard to explain but easy to experience – which gives you an ability to watch yourself.
3. I started noticing stuff which I never did. My beliefs, values. Most importantly my thoughts.
4. You would get this Big Picture view of anything where it becomes easy for one to see where all this fits in, in the big picture.
5. All the trivialities sort of start to fall off.

I am no expert at this, but just 15 minutes of my day affects so many hours of my waking life. That’s all I know and that’s all I want to do at this time. I won’t let Perfection stop me from being good.

Author: akbar

Ramblings on Ideas, Creativity, Technology, and Spirituality. View all posts by akbar