Meditation Woes

I have been attending meditation classes twice a month for the last couple of months, and I have been meditating at least once a day, and often twice a day. Meditation is such a simple thing to do. Meditation is such a nearly impossible thing to do!

Basically, all I have to do is straighten my spine, relax my whole body, take deep centering breaths, not pay attention to any mental thoughts as I attend to the breath entering and leaving my body. I either fall asleep, or my mind is so active that I simply cannot attend to the breath entering and leaving my body. This is a true challenge for the attention deficit disordered mind!

Baby steps - that is all I can manage toward this amazing methodology of exploring human consciousness. Maybe it will take multiple lifetimes to master meditation. It will give my immortal spirit a hobby, keep it out of trouble, I guess. 

Some of the instructions are designed to drive you crazy: be aware of being aware. What?! After trying that several times, it begins to make sense. Some things are beyond mundane expression.

I have it on good authority that practicing meditation is a worthy pursuit. His Holiness the Dalai Lama writes in the foreword of the Alan Wallace book Genuine Happiness, Meditation as the Path to Fulfillment, "When the Buddha and other great teachers of the past first gave these instructions, they did not do so in order that only Indians, Tibetans, or Asians should benefit, but in order that all sentient beings should find peace and happiness. It is my prayer, too, that whoever puts these instructions and words of advice into effect may find the tranquility and insight that is their fruit".

I am giving it my best effort.