Commit to One Meditation Practice
If you want to make progress in meditation you have to pick one meditation that resonates deeply with you and stay with it, rather than sampling a different practice each day.
Dandapani calls the meditation app model, with a separate practice for sleep, focus or tranquility, a meditation buffet. He explains that sampling is fine for someone exploring meditation for the first time, but that anyone serious about it has to choose one practice and stick with it.
What this talk covers
- Meditation apps offer a practice for sleeping, one for focus, one for tranquility, and it goes on and on, which is what he calls a meditation buffet.
- Doing one meditation today, another tomorrow, and something else after three days of boredom is not how progress is made.
- The buffet works at entry level, for someone who has never meditated and wants to sample what it is.
- If you are serious about meditation, pick one that resonates deeply with you, that makes sense, that is reasonable, and stick with it.
You change your clothes every day, you change your underwear every day, but you don't change your meditation every day.Dandapani
Questions
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That approach is a buffet, and it is fine if you are just exploring what meditation is. If you want to make progress you pick one meditation and stay with it.
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They work at entry level, for someone who read that meditation is good for them and wants to sample a few things. For serious practice, you have to commit to one.
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Pick the one that resonates deeply with you, that makes sense to you and that is reasonable, then stay with it. That is how you make progress.
Transcript
264 words · 1:29
Have you come across a meditation app where there's a whole bunch of different meditations that you can do once you're signed into the app? There's a meditation that you can do for sleeping, that's a meditation for focus, meditation for tranquility, and it just goes on and on and on. It essentially is what I call a meditation buffet. You come to a buffet table that's 50 feet long,
and you pick whatever meditation you want to do and you just do it. Do one meditation today, don't like it, do another meditation tomorrow, don't like that one, I'll do this one instead, do this for three days, I'm bored with this one, maybe I'll try something else. Do you think you'll actually make progress
meditating this way? You have to pick one meditation. The buffet table doesn't The buffet table works for entry level for people who want to come and explore meditation. Maybe they've never meditated before. They read an article in the New York Times that said meditation is good for you.
Like, what is meditation? I should go check it out. Maybe I'll download this app. And they can sample a few things.
But if you're serious about meditation, if you want to make progress with meditation, you've got to pick one. one that resonates deeply with you, that makes sense, that's reasonable, stick with it, and that's how you make progress. You don't change your meditation every day. You change your
clothes every day, you change your underwear every day, but you don't change your meditation every day.