I have been told at a Tibetan Buddhist center that their practice is to meditate with their eyes open because the benefits are more easily transferred to your every day life. Since you are awake with your eyes open throughout the day, learning to meditate with your eyes open should help you implement the benefits you gain through meditation in your everyday life.
What I have noticed is that I am more aware of my thoughts, and that I am lost in my thoughts. Getting lost in my thoughts has always been something that has consumed most of my day. The moment a story line would start, I would just get so deep into it and I wouldn't even realize it until it would completely take over and even change my mood.
I have been meditating on and off for quite a while, but it never really made a difference, I would even get lost in the story lines while meditating. That changed when I started going to a Buddhist meditation center about a year ago, I spent about 3 months there and they explained that you should not try to let go or get rid of thoughts while meditating, that instead, you want to be aware that you are thinking. Once you become aware of them, you just let them go by themselves. But to not force this process, simply sit and be aware of the thoughts.
Once that sank in, I started putting it to practice during meditations, and it actually showed some results, it started working, I started noticing that I was thinking and lost in the stories more and more, and was able to bring myself back, and that translated into everyday life.
Now, when I think about things, even before a story is created I am already aware of the situation, that I am thinking and that if I continue this way, I will get lost in the story.
I can't stop the story line and myself from getting lost in it every time, but, I am aware of it every time now, and that is a huge difference. It gives me more control over my mind and my thoughts, and the option to actually make a decision, if to continue down that path and get lost, or if to end it. It's just that for me some story lines are too tempting to not go down, but that is another practice!
It depends how long you have been practicing meditation for. If you are new to it, sitting for long periods of time, even for 30 minutes, can be too much. You might just not be used to it, you might not be sitting correctly, you might experience more back and knee pain, and a few other things that could cause you to burn out quickly from the practice and just stop it.
In comparison, meditating for even just 5 to 10 minutes a day in the beginning has quite a few benefits, the main one is that you don't burn out and get tired of the practice so quickly, instead, you build it up and make it a long term practice. Other than that, it helps build stamina, strengthens the muscles required for sitting, and allows you to slowly get into the mindfulness part of the practice with less stress.
So I would say that sitting for 15 minutes, or even 5 to 10 minutes can be more effective than sitting for 30 minutes, 1 hour, or more. Even for the more advanced and well practiced meditators, sitting for such long periods of time is not necessarily more beneficial than a short session.
The longest session I have done was a 3 hour long session that included about 10 minutes of walking meditation every 25 minutes or so.
I did this once a week for a few weeks, and the more I did it, the more I got used to it. The sitting was pretty difficult, but here are a few things I noticed:
- After doing this for a few weeks, the sitting still felt as difficult in the end as it did in the beginning, but, it was far more tolerable, which made the whole session easier.
- Many times I found myself waiting for the bell to ring that indicates to begin the walking meditation. This would usually replace even my string of wondering thoughts as It was so difficult for me to keep sitting, I was sort of waiting for the relief of the bell and anticipating it.
- Other than the above point, thoughts almost never stopped, but, that isn't the point of meditation. I'm noting this just to not give the impression that there was any attempt at stopping the thoughts from coming in this practice.
- Sitting back down after the walking meditation felt like a sort of reset, even though the walking was just about 10 minutes and the sitting before was so difficult. The sense of a reset really helped make it tolerable and less difficult.
- There were moments of "clarity" in which I felt as if my mind was in a dream state. There were still thoughts, but, they took on a slightly different form, I wasn't attached to them or focused on them, but I was just aware of them as they were playing in the background in my mind. This usually didn't last long, but it was an amazing feeling and experience when it happened.
- I felt a great sense of accomplishment after each session, no matter how the session went.
- There was a sense of calmness after each session, again, regardless of how the session went and if I was full of thoughts the whole time.
- Doing this type of practice in a meditation session with other practitioners made all the difference. I don't believe I would actually be disciplined enough to do this whole session on my own. The presence of others really played a huge role in keeping me going.
- It wouldn't be fair to not point out the physical pain I guess, so yes, there was pain in my back and in my legs, and they would tend to fall asleep. I would shift around and switch my legs around to wake them up and prevent them from falling asleep. Overall, it's not pain I would be worried about or that would prevent me from doing this again, it's more of an uncomfortable type pain, and it got easier as the weeks went on.
- The beginning of each session was easier on the mind than the end. In the beginning I felt more in "control", not in the sense of controlling my mind, but just being less on auto pilot and having less thoughts. The end of the sessions were far more chaotic for me, thoughts were out of control, I would also find myself following the thoughts story line a lot more, rather than bringing my awareness back to the breath. I would engage in the stories.
This was part of a month of constant meditation in which I meditated twice a day almost every day, and went to lectures, so it would be pretty hard to say what impact this specific part of the practice had on me for that time and after. I can say that those days were quite peaceful, less stressful, and just overall more mindful.
Overall I would say it was a great experience. It was without a doubt very difficult, but very rewarding also. I personally jumped right into it, starting with daily meditations twice a day, including this 3 hour session once a week, but this may not be the best approach to this, maybe some would benefit from starting with much shorter sessions, or just the hourly sessions once or twice a day.
Letting go of thoughts to me has always felt like a task to do while meditating, and that is not the point of the meditation or of letting go of thoughts.
Rather than it being a task and something you are actively doing, I think of it more as allowing the thoughts to pass. To not try to force them out, but to just let them be. In my mind, and it may just be me, but thinking "letting them go" always felt like its something I need to do, and that is adding another thought to your mind, the thought of needing to let the thoughts go. So instead, I see it as allowing them to go, letting them be what they are - passing thoughts.
I like the analogy of a flow of water in a river. Nothing is pulling and nothing is pushing. There is no force applied, and yet there is flow. This is how I try to see my thoughts while meditating, and in general in life. Just as they came with nothing pulling them in, that's how I should let them go, without anything pushing them out.
