Sit Like a Buddha: A Pocket Guide to Meditation by Rinzler Lodro

Author:Rinzler, Lodro [Rinzler, Lodro]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
Published: 2014-11-03T16:00:00+00:00

SPEEDY-BUSYNESS

Counter to what we normally perceive as laziness is our second main obstacle: speedy-busyness. I first heard this term used by my teacher, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, and it seems to hit the nail on the head. It’s the idea that you know you want to meditate. It’s definitely something you want to do. But when you get up in the morning you check your e-mail and then you realize you’re late for work so you scramble to get there on time, swearing you’ll meditate when you get home. As you’re about to clock out a friend texts you and asks if you want to drop by and see her new place so you do but you tell yourself that you really will meditate after that. Then you get home and you smell so you decide to shower. Then your dad calls and you haven’t talked to him for a while so you catch up. Then you check your e-mail again. Then it’s 10:00 p.m. and you have to get up early so you climb into bed, turn on the television, and realize you have made it so you just don’t have time for that ten minutes of meditation that day. You wake up the next morning having sworn not to make the same mistake twice, but you repeat the same cycle. That is a prime example of speedy-busyness.

Frankly, you do have those ten minutes for meditation. We all do. It’s just that you have spent an entire day convincing yourself that you don’t, making everything other than your meditation practice a priority. It would, in fact, be less time- consuming to sit down and do your practice than exert all that mental energy convincing yourself that you can’t do it. That is speedy-busyness, a form of avoiding your practice through conceptual means. It can be exhausting.

Speedy-busyness is one of the reasons I recommend that people establish consistency early on in their meditation practice. If you have a set place you go to meditate, that serves as the extra impetous to galvanize you to sit down and practice, and you’re not convincing yourself that you don’t have the time to set up your practice space. Alternatively, if you say, “I meditate after my morning coffee every day, Monday to Friday,” then you will build out your schedule to include your meditation practice. It will not keep falling to the back burner like it would if you just say, “I meditate in the morning.” If you consistently meditate for ten minutes and pace yourself to do it daily for a period of time, then it starts to become a new habit that you build into your life alongside your other habits, such as showering or getting dressed. Getting specific with these commitments is important in overcoming speedy-busyness. Consistency is one of the best antidotes to this difficult obstacle.

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