Meditation in the 2020s

There are a few obstacles to meditation in 2022 life. Time is a big one.

​First, it’s hard to find an hour a week so sit quietly, to devote to being still and looking inward. Not everyone is comfortable doing this in the first place, and devoting a full hour a week or thirty minutes a day to the necessary practice seems downright luxurious to most, I imagine. But for meditation to work, much like going to the gym for the body, you have to practice and you have to show up.

Second, the length of time spent meditating has to make sense for modern minds. We have so many more distractions than we did just ten years ago, hell, than just last year it seems. It’s one thing to say hey, you need to be less distracted—make yourself less distracted. But it’s another, more useful thing to say we get it, and we can help you find the correct balance for you.
I use the gym comparison a lot, and we’ll continue it here. Like with lifting weights, you have to challenge yourself and push yourself to practice meditation and to grow your skills and abilities. What’s the point otherwise?
But like with lifting weights, you have to be sensible. You have to know your body as it is now, otherwise you’ll burn yourself out on lifting real fast or worse. You could hurt yourself if you push too hard too fast.
It’s difficult for me to articulate how meditating too hard too fast can hurt a person, but I suspect it can do harm in its way. So it’s best not to push too far beyond what you can do too early in your practice. It isn’t about being a good meditator, it’s about getting better at it. Always getting better.
So I call it meeting people where they are, and that requires some flexibility and grace.
Last night in class we had someone new, and as much as i thought I was taking it easy on her, our first lesson ran quite long and another student gently prodded me to wrap things up for the sake of the new person. In conversation with another student after, I got the sense that shorter exercises were what the class responds to best in general. It’s a fact, i think, of modern minds and modern life. As much as i think meditation can help the modern condition, we live in the world and the world is thus.
So a balance needs to be struck between meeting the class’ needs and pushing them forward. This is quite an important point, so I will reflect on it—dare i say meditate on it—and revisit the subject in the next post.