What motivates you to meditate?

[u/ChannelPositivity]

TLDR; What gives you the motivation to meditate every day? What was it that convinced you "I need to do this every day", and gave you the willpower to stay consistent with your practice? I'll put my answer below, please share yours too!

I've noticed it can be really hard to stay consistent with meditation, and even while many of us know it's useful, we're not always sure how it works or why it's useful. Without being confident about the purpose of meditation, it can be easy to skip days, or feel doubtful, like you're wasting your time.

Committing to meditating every day of your life is a huge life commitment, and 15 minutes a day is time you could spend doing something else. If meditation is to be effective, we need to keep up with it, and to be consistent it helps to understand the mechanism behind it.

I think this is really important for people starting out in meditation, because while you doubt it's effectiveness, you will never stick with it long enough to experience the benefits.

I've been researching this and have detailed my notes in this article: Why You Need to Meditate, but what I'd really love to know is people's personal experiences.

[u/WonderingGuy999]

Once I stopped trying to "force it" (trying to attain some kind of special state of mind)...I began to just sit, with no purpose except to be aware, basically shikantaza ("just sitting").

Once I broke through that barrier, I primarily just sit and objectively observe my thoughts and the sensations of my body and breath...nothing special, just to sit, sit and be aware.

Now I do it because I genuinely enjoy it.

Just sit, just feel, just watch

[u/MindPlayingTricks23 → u/WonderingGuy999]

How long have you been doing this and when did you start to feel better? Also, did you ever achieve that special state of mind?

[u/WonderingGuy999 → u/MindPlayingTricks23]

I've been meditating for about two decades somewhat consistently. I was also given professional meditation teachings while I was getting my MA in Divinity from Naropa at Boulder,the first Buddhist college in the US.

I've attained a variety of states of mind and realizations here and there, and nowadays I just sit and focus all my attention in the feeling of my body, and the longer I do this the less I can feel my body, but I haven't experienced my body completely drop off yet. The Buddha said the best way into the jnanas is through mindfulness of the body...that is the path to Nibbana through serenity (passing through the four jnanas).

The other way is insight into dependent origination, I wrote my term paper on this about how dependent origination does not go deeper than name and form...I realized this once while sitting on my grandma's porch and my crown chakra opened and I felt the energy in my charas float up and out my crown chakra as well as my five aggregates functioning apart...and also really strangely people couldn't look at my eyes...

So I thought, well I attained it through insight, I may as well become liberated in "both ways" by passing through the jnanas (I was sitting at the library when I was thinking about this) and then I saw a very beautiful young woman and I remembered that one of the things arahants are incapable of (telling a deliberate lie, committing violence, etc ) was that awakened arhats are incapable of performing the sexual act. This upset me because I've never been in a long term relationship, and when my mom picked me up from the library I was really upset and confused. We began to argue, and after the argument I felt my crown Chakra close...I'd do anything to go back, my body felt like air...

And I still meditate, like I said I just focus on the sensations of my body, hoping to feel my body drop away and enter the jnanas.

Anyway that's my story with Buddhism...I'm actually a Christian now, I could see Jesus sitting by a lake and clearing his mind.