{"id":61951,"date":"2019-03-20T12:19:30","date_gmt":"2019-03-20T20:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/?p=61951"},"modified":"2019-03-24T19:43:56","modified_gmt":"2019-03-25T03:43:56","slug":"the-5-life-changing-benefits-of-keeping-a-meditation-journal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/the-5-life-changing-benefits-of-keeping-a-meditation-journal\/","title":{"rendered":"The 5 Life-changing Benefits of Keeping a Meditation Journal"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

I have notebooks and journals for everything: Work, habits, goals, exercise, personal projects, language learning, New Year’s resolutions…<\/p>\n

I have them all sitting here on my desk, just waiting to be used. And so when I came across the practice of keeping a meditation journal, I thought the last thing I needed in my life was yet another one to add to the dusty pile.<\/p>\n

The problem was, despite everyone spouting about the incredible, transformative benefits of meditation, my daily year-long practice was getting me nowhere. Worse, for the past few months, it felt like it was taking me\u00a0backwards.<\/p>\n

Half a year into keeping a meditation journal, and I can’t believe I ever did without it. Each time I sit, I take five minutes before to record the details of my practice \u2014 date, duration, type, place \u2014 and ten minutes after to write about the observations and experiences I had.<\/p>\n

Bringing writing into my meditation has allowed me to get to know myself better than ever. Instead of wasting time, going around in circles and beating myself up<\/a> when things aren’t going as well as expected, instead, I quickly notice when I’m stuck in old patterns and manage to bring my expectations in check before even getting started.<\/p>\n

Overall, this means my practice is much deeper, much more fulfilling, and much less demanding on my time.<\/p>\n

The ways in which a journal can improve your meditation practice<\/a> are endless. Here are five that prove one deserves a place in your practice and at the very top of your own pile of notebooks.<\/p>\n

1. Make the teachings personal<\/h2>\n

You can read every Eckhart Tolle, Jack Kornfield, and Thich Nhat Hanh book under the sun, and not be any the wiser if you aren\u2019t able to apply the teachings into your own life.<\/p>\n

This is why the Buddha\u2019s greatest teaching was not the four noble truths or the principle of dependent origination, but to \u201cnot believe\u00a0in anything simply because you have heard it or because it is found written in your religious books\u201d<\/em>. Before anything, the Buddha taught that one must inquire into one\u2019s own experience and then only agree with something if it matches up with what you find.<\/p>\n

The Buddha\u2019s reasoning here was that it\u2019s all too easy to get wrapped up in religion, tradition, and words, and start thinking that they are the source of the solutions to our woes. If attaining wisdom and freedom from suffering is like climbing a mountain, spiritual guidance is like the signposts that help guide us to the top. In this way, they are fundamentally different to the path \u2014 not least because everyone is at different stages and on different paths, and so everyone’s way to the top will be different from the next person’s.<\/p>\n

Rather than relying on signposts, however, the Buddha also taught that there is no one better to give this guidance than ourselves. The problem is we often know what we need to do but do everything we can to avoid it. By keeping a meditation journal, we can keep track of our practice and become better attuned to what we need and when \u2014 developing the keys to lasting wisdom: a discerning mind and the ability to ask skillful questions.<\/a><\/p>\n

2. Avoid spiritual bypassing<\/h2>\n

So often our approach to meditation is based on a method of problem-solving that only works in the physical world. For example, say we need to fix a car that\u2019s broken down. There are two states, the broken-down car,\u00a0and the fixed car, and to go from one state to the other, we need to take some sort of physical action and movement \u2014 i.e. find a mechanic and take it to the garage.<\/p>\n

We spend much of our days in this problem-solving mode, and so naturally, we take the same approach to fixing our internal problems. We have the state we are in now \u2014 not feeling right for whatever reason \u2014 and the state we want to get to \u2014 feeling right, i.e. nirvana \u2014 and then go about a process of getting ourselves there.<\/p>\n

The problem with this approach is that not only doesn\u2019t it work, by thinking there\u2019s a problem that needs to be fixed, we create the idea of a \u2018broken\u2019 me that\u2019s here and we need to get away from, and a \u2018fixed\u2019 me that\u2019s out there and we need to become.<\/p>\n

This dualistic mode of thinking leads to what\u2019s known as spiritual bypassing. Spiritual bypassing is when we use the highs and tranquil states produced by meditation (taking the car to the garage) as just another way of turning away from reality and temporarily avoiding the difficulties of life<\/a>. But we are not broken-down cars, and the answer to our problems is not somewhere else to be found \u2014 it’s in realizing what’s already here, however broken and damaged it may seem. A meditation journal helps us see this by not offering us another way to escape, but helping us see how we can relate to our experience in a new way.<\/p>\n

3. Go past what and get down to the why<\/h2>\n

We know ourselves and our lives too well \u2014 at least we think we do. So when it comes to our bad habits, unwanted tendencies, and are many inadequacies and deficiencies, we so quick to dismiss them that we actually never really get to know them or ourselves at all.<\/p>\n

As Socrates pronounced in a speech following his decision to be sentenced to death over exile from Athens, “An unexamined life is not worth living\u201d.<\/em> Socrates wasn\u2019t saying that everyone needs to become a philosopher and go through every aspect of their experience with a fine-tooth comb. Rather, he was saying that without an open, curious, and critical attitude to life, the chances are that you will end up being ruled by the parts of yourself, or of somebody else, that have been neglected and tried to be kept hidden in the dark.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Buddha would agree with this. A lot of his teaching was built on not finding better answers to questions, but learning how to ask better questions. When we place our ability to question over our ability to answer and find solutions, we move from a mindset of closing doors to one of opening them. This is the attitude Buddha spoke of as necessary if you are to go beyond logic and understand that, \u201cThings are not what they seem. Nor are they otherwise.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

So, as well as helping to bring the darker sides of ourselves into the light, a meditation journal helps us see our lives, as Gandhi said, as “a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

4. Breakthrough to deeper ground<\/h2>\n

So often the time we put aside for meditating is spent mentally noting the shopping list and running through conversations we had the day before, with only a few moments of real focus on the breath just before the bell rings.<\/p>\n

Although they can seem mundane and anything but spiritual, it\u2019s these everyday tasks we think of as distractions and that supposedly keep us from the \u2018real\u2019 practice, that are actually the source of real progress and development.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say you regularly sit down to meditate after work, but every time you do the next door neighbour\u2019s dog perks up and starts yapping away. Immediately, you get annoyed and start thinking about how this is yet again another wasted session and why can\u2019t they control the damn dog and this is just typical and could your life really get any worse.<\/p>\n

Another way to approach this scenario, though, would be to work with the initial aversion and use it as your practice. After all, if something presents itself to you, maybe it’s not there to be pushed away but used. Journaling gives you the power<\/a> to do this; you can inquire into the feeling of annoyance, the person who feels annoyed, and the story behind why it annoys you so much. Noticing and exploring such feelings with a discerning mind, instead of taking them on face value, can accelerate and enhance the process of sitting and watching the breath by removing obstacles that you may otherwise have not known were there.<\/p>\n

In the case of the barking dog, with a little reflection, we may realize we have bundles of assumptions and judgments about why we deserve this moment to relax, what we regard as unpleasant and pleasant experiences, and how much of our discomfort is not in the noise itself, but in the story we\u2019ve weaved about what it means to us<\/em> and who we believe ourselves to be.<\/p>\n

5. Getting off the wheel of samsara<\/h2>\n

Everyone has heard the famous quote (often attributed to Einstein) that goes, \u201cThe definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.\u201d<\/em> If this is true, though, then I\u2019m sure pretty much all of us would qualify as officially insane.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing to do the same things over and over again, it\u2019s another thing to notice you’re doing them, and it’s a whole other kettle of fish to actually do something about it and change your behaviour.<\/p>\n

But why is it so difficult to change? Is it just that we are extremely forgetful; do we just get a big kick out of self-flagellation? These no doubt have something to do with it, but there\u2019s something much, much bigger going on, and it lays at the heart of the Buddha\u2019s teaching: the wheel of suffering.<\/p>\n

The Buddha taught that as long as we crave and desire for fulfillment, we are trapped in samsara, or the wheel of suffering, It’s an easy enough concept to grasp, but the trouble is the mind is constantly evolving and coming up with new and ever subtler ways to deceive us and convince us that we\u2019ve finally found the solution to all our problems.<\/p>\n

Asking yourself the right questions is like throwing a huge spanner in the constantly turning wheel of suffering. Contrary to what many people think, getting out of the cycle is not to do away with all dissatisfaction and eliminate all difficult experiences. Rather, it’s to realize the imperfection<\/a>, uncertainty, and impermanence that is inherent to all life. This is right here, right now, in plain sight for all to see. The problem is we don’t see it, and for that, we need to not bring in more ideas, principles, and beliefs, but cut through all the ones that lay in its way.<\/p>\n

Life offers us so many solutions, answers, and teachings about meditation, that when it comes to the actual practice itself, we can often come away feeling worse than better off. Keeping a meditation journal<\/a> gives us a way to slow all this motion down, do away with unhelpful and hindering ideas, and like the Buddha was so insistent about, actually find out what\u2019s actually going on for ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have notebooks and journals for everything: Work, habits, goals, exercise, personal projects, language learning, New Year’s resolutions… I have them all sitting here on my desk, just waiting to be used. 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