How to Liven Up Your Meditation
Mindfulness meditation is often taught as a set of techniques.
For example:
Label each thought as “thinking” when it arises in your mind
Sit with your spine straight, but not rigid
Place your hands palm side down on your knees
The sheer number of tiny but impactful techniques can feel overwhelming at first. You might think, “If only I can get the techniques right, my meditation will be perfect.”
There is some truth to that thought. Embodying the correct meditation posture, naturally helps to calm the mind, making it more amenable to the cultivation of mindfulness.
If you stay focused on the the techniques, however, it’s easy to fall into a blank, dry, or lifeless state.
As a mindfulness teacher, I’ve seen that happen to beginners in mindfulness meditation all the way up to advanced meditators.
Meditation is about so much more than techniques.
Fundamentally, meditation is an orientation of mind—looking in or looking out:
Is your mind looking outwardly lost in distraction—engaged in all the transitory thoughts, feelings, and stories?
Or is your mind looking inwardly, aware of its own true nature? That doesn’t mean your eyes are closed and you don’t see the world! It means that instead of placing your attention on the projections of mind, you’re aligned with the awareness of mind that holds space for it all.
In addition, the right motivation can insanely inspire your meditation. Otherwise, a technique-based meditation can feel dry, flat, and lifeless.
That’s not what you want, is it?
Let’s look at three ways to juice up your meditation. I’ll draw from traditional Buddhist teachings as well as the guidance of contemporary spiritual teacher, Adyashanti.
But you don’t have to be a Buddhist or follow any particular spiritual teacher to use these forms of motivation to liven up your meditation.
1. Start with Compassion
Many people practice mindfulness and meditation for self-improvement purposes. They want to feel less stressed, be less emotionally reactive, or perhaps gain better focus and thus become more productive.
It’s okay to want positive outcomes for yourself.
Buddhists however, start every meditation session by thinking of others instead of focusing exclusively on themselves. They do this by invoking compassion.
In Buddhism, compassion is often referred to as “bodhichitta.” But the word “bodhicitta” means far more than everyday compassion.
“The essence of bodhicitta is unlimited, impartial love and compassion for all sentient beings.”—Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche
To see everyone as deserving of our love is far different than our usual mode of being, isn’t it? We tend to reserve compassion for those close to us or find it suddenly aroused through an encounter with someone who is suffering, either in person or on the news.
Try routinely adding a dose of compassion at the start of your meditation or even in the middle if your meditation feels flat.
When you decide you’re practicing not just for yourself but for others as well, it brings a feeling of warmth and purpose to your meditation and cuts through that blank feeling.
Can the spiritual energy of your meditation directly impact others? No one knows for certain.
But if your meditation makes you calmer, clearer, and kinder, others will benefit indeed.
So, when you start a meditation session, think for a moment of all the suffering people in the world. Make a heartfelt wish that through the power of your practice they’ll be free of suffering and also have the unlimited happiness we all deserve.
2. Consider Devotion
It’s only natural to feel gratitude to the person who has taught you life-changing skills like meditation, and mind-opening teachings which have transformed your understanding of the nature of the “self” and the world.
This feeling of gratitude can evolve into devotion and manifest as a resolute commitment to a meditation guide or spiritual teacher.
They’ve helped you so of course you want to do all you can to pay them back. You might decide to do this by making a strong commitment to what you’ve learned. Or, you might offer to help them in other ways.
Devotion is not something that can be forced. It must be an inner force rooted in gratitude and appreciation. But when you feel heart-felt devotion, it can infuse your meditation with warmth, love, and meaning.
How do you apply this?
At the start of a meditation session, think of your teacher and all the teachers of her lineage. Feel gratitude for all you’ve received and all they have given to others as well.
Devotion naturally opens your heart and mind, which allows your meditation to flow with more ease and aliveness.
Of course, we should examine a teacher carefully before offering him or her out devoted heart. Abusive teachers have wrought devastation on the psyches of unsuspecting followers.
If devotion to a teacher doesn’t feel right for you, stoke devotion to the teachings instead. That doesn’t mean to be dogmatic, but rather to feel gratitude and appreciation for the life-enhancing teachings you’ve received.
Ultimately, devotion is a skillful means that opens your mind and heart. It’s more for you than for the teacher. A teacher shouldn’t need or require devotion.
“Ultimately, devotion is the constant call of your own enlightened mind.”—Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche
3. Adopt a Self-Giving Attitude
The contemporary spiritual teacher Adyashanti recommends adopting an attitude of “self-giving” at the start of your meditation and in life as well.
Adyashanti offers spiritual teachings on awakening that are free from any tradition or ideology. Although, he studied Zen Buddhism for fourteen years, he has synthesized his own spiritual approach to awakening.
Having listened to hours of teaching on self-giving, I’ve concluded it’s a form of devotion seen from a different angle and that doesn’t involve devotion to a teacher.
Self-giving is based on the notion that you’re always giving your time and attention—your two most precious commodities.
An unlimited number of things call for your time and attention. But as a limited human being, you can’t attend to everything.
So you must choose, but often we don’t choose consciously.
The choice of where and how you place your time and attention determines the quality of your experience in any given moment.
In a spiritual context, that we means we can give our time and attention to the content of mind—all the thoughts, emotions, and sensations. Or we can give our time and attention to the awareness of mind or even to the divine ground of being.
But the trick is to consciously engage in self-giving during meditation as a heartfelt, devotional act.
Adyashanti describes the quality of self-giving as giving attention from the heart as an offering and as an act of devotion. He says giving your attention in a devoted way requires more of you. It requires more presence and more conscious attention doesn’t it?
You can apply this at the start of any meditation by making a conscious choice to give your time and attention fully and in a heartfelt way for the remainder of the session.
Closing Thoughts
You won’t feel a joy and wonder every time you meditate. Meditation has its ups and downs. But if your meditation constantly feels stale, lifeless, or dry, something is awry.
You may be missing an important component that can infuse your meditation with warmth, clarity, and power.
You can liven up your meditation by using any one of these three approaches:
Compassion
Devotion
Self-giving
Try one out and let me know if it makes a difference for you.
Thank you for your presence, I know your time is precious! Don’t forget to sign up for Wild Arisings, my twice monthly letters from the heart filled with insights, inspiration, and ideas to help you connect with and live from your truest self.
You might also like to check out my Living with Ease course or visit my Self-Care Shop. May you be happy, well, and safe – always. With love, Sandra