The Pains of Meditation

When People tell me that they meditate for hours. I have a difficult time believing them. I’ve been meditating for almost ten years, and I can’t sit still for more than twenty-minutes. My legs start to get rigid. My back begins to hurt. My fingers start fidgeting. I start to lose concentration as invading thoughts start to explode through my mind like bombs from a terrorist attack. Then, the tics start to come, followed by involuntary movements that are highly disruptive.

Then there is rude and intrusive outburst of thoughts. Instead of me thinking about world peace, I start to think about how badly I have to piss. Instead of focusing on intention, I get angry and think about contention. I try to realign my thoughts and focus on meditation, but my mind jumps to procreation. These things always happen to me. It is like I have Tourette syndrome only while I am meditating.

I’ve done my research and I am not alone. Many people suffer from tics and disruptive involuntary thoughts while meditating. I wanted to find out what the solution to this problem was. After digging a little further I finally found my answer. The solution was simple. It was all about discipline. Discipline! That’s one word that I didn’t want to hear.

Whenever I think about discipline, my mind rewinds back to the days when I hired an ex Drill-Sergeant as a personal trainer. I remember him yelling at me to move faster and work harder. I remember running like a maniac, with my heart beating so quickly that I felt like it was going to jump out of my chest. The man was pure evil. He ran beside me and barked, discipline is all about getting pain and weakness out of the body.

Now, I understand that the man wasn’t all there. He was probably around thirty-percent crazy. But he did have a good point. The object of pain was to make us aware of our weaknesses. Our hearts vibrate at a much higher frequency than any other organ in our bodies. If we work to change the frequency of the heart, then we can change the frequency of the mind. Aha!

The intruding thoughts that ring through our minds like annoying telemarketers are more like red flags than nuances. They tell us what our weaknesses are. The intruding thoughts are our hearts’ way of communicating with us. It is our hearts and not our minds that are vying for our attention. Discipline is about focusing on the heart, making it stronger so all of our weaknesses can leave the body.