How to Make Progress in Meditation
You make progress in meditation by picking one meditation that resonates deeply with you and repeating it, because the goal is to go narrow and deep rather than shallow and wide.
Dandapani compares meditation apps full of options to a buffet table, and to going to the gym and training a different muscle every day. He asks you to choose one practice that makes sense to you and commit to it, pointing to his own practice, taught by his guru in 1995 and unmodified since.
What this talk covers
- Apps with a meditation for sleeping, for focus, for peace and for tranquility amount to a buffet table you graze from.
- Training your right bicep one day, your left bicep the next, then your quads and your back, and only returning to the right bicep a month later, develops nothing quickly.
- The buffet works at entry level, for someone who has never meditated and wants to sample what it is.
- If you are serious, pick one meditation that resonates deeply with you, that makes sense and is reasonable, and stick with it.
- His guru taught him his meditation in 1995 and he is still doing the same one, unmodified.
The goal is to go narrow and deep, not shallow and wide.Dandapani
Questions
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Dandapani has done the same meditation since his guru taught it to him in 1995, without modifying it. The point is to go narrow and deep rather than shallow and wide.
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If you change practice whenever you get bored, you are doing the equivalent of training a different muscle at the gym every day and coming back to the first one a month later.
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Yes. He says people are terrified of committing, but to make progress in meditation you really have to commit to one practice.
Transcript
488 words · 2:49
Have you tried a bunch of different meditation apps? 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, there's a meditation for focus, there's a meditation for peace, meditation for tranquility,
and it just goes on and on and on. It essentially is what I call a meditation buffet. You come to buffet table that's 50 feet long and you pick whatever meditation you wanna 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? So imagine if I went to the gym
and by the way, just as a disclaimer, I'm not a gym junkie. If I were to go to the gym, and imagine I lifted weights for my right biceps today.
Tomorrow I go to the gym, I work on my left biceps. The day after that, I go to the gym and I work on my right quads. The day after that, I work on my left quads.
The day after that, my lower back, then the day after that, my upper back, whatever part of my body I'm working on the next day, and then after a month, I come back to my right bicep.
How long do you think it will take me to develop my right bicep? Probably a really long time. I don't think you need to be a gym junkie to figure out that that doesn't work. You have to pick one meditation.
The buffet table doesn't work. 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 and say,
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 got to pick one. Pick 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 but you don't change your meditation every day. My guru taught me how to meditate back in 1995.
How many years ago was that? That's like 29 years ago. I'm still doing the same meditation. I haven't modified it a bit.
The goal is to go narrow and deep, not shallow and wide. Commit. People are terrified of committing, but to make progress in meditation,
you really have to commit.