[Gem]

Originally Posted by The Necromancer

Yes, I did and she's a real diamond alright - in the rough.

Seriously though, I share this tale so it may help others understand things through my own eyes...like how discipline, regularity of practice and personal intent is the most important aspects of the meditation process and of course I knew this, but over 20 years, I let myself totally forget about it.

Meditation itself is a discipline, but to quieten the mind, it needs to know "this is meditation time"...just like after brushing teeth and prayers etc the bodymind knows "oh, I am doing this now - it must mean that it's bed time".

I share these inspirational stories as a living lesson and it's going to take a while for the new neural pathways to be formed, but this is what it's all about.

For a person to meditate for a few hours a week at any time of the night or day and say "I am not getting anywhere" there's a good reason for that.

I also read about people not having time to meditate. They musn't have good time management skills imho.

Set the alarm clock for half an hour before you usually get up and re-arrange those things you do after your evening meal.

If a person is working for 12-14 hours a day or has a very young family, I can understand it fully and this is why, in Hinduism, the texts say that meditation isn't really meant for grihasthas (family people) but for vanaprastha (retired people). It is said that there's too much going on in the life of a householder to quieten the mind...but I digress again.

I just hope my analogies convey purpose and intent more than being just a nice story.

Thank you so much for replying and I thank Gem and PlatitudePluto too. I shall get around to individual acknowledgment soon.

Personally, I don't think you should thank the nurse, and I'm completely indifferent to being thanked, I was just thinking that we are fortunate in a similar way in that there is a lot of free time, though much of it is wasted, but the meditation to me is partly some time on the mat, but mainly it's 'getting real' about the mind's trickiness, such as the things we may tell ourselves like you mentioned. It's really just self-honesty in seeing things as they are, like seeing the 'little excuses' as our own bulldust that gets in the way. I mean, doing the routine of practice is great and beneficial and all that, but the deeper issue is the discipline, innit. That's the actual thing realised, and it is realised by taking an honest look at it... For me there's only one way forward. Goodbye computer forums.

Anyway, I was only going to say we are very fortunate to have such free time, but perhaps making much better use of it would be for the best.