The Five Hindrances: Restlessness, and the lack of discipline

Whenever I tell people that I meditate regularly, a common comment is "wow, I wish I have your discipline!" 

It might come as a surprise that for me, it's really not a matter of discipline. I don't whip my own mind into shape, and force myself to sit down and breathe and watch the breath... well, I admit I used to do so. However, I've found that this tends to be counterproductive, due to something akin to psychological resistance: the more you will yourself to, the harder it is to do. 

Unfortunately, for most of our lives, we have been conditioned to do exactly that. How many times  have you been told while growing up that "you have to study regularly", "you have to eat right", "you have to do well in school", "you have to XYZABCDEF"? Somehow, I think this conditioning gets into most of our heads, because we end up telling ourselves the same things: 

"I have to get straight As"

"I have to exercise every day"

"I have to get a 30in waist" (Note: this was one of my previous new year resolutions... :p)

"I have to meditate everyday, for 30 minutes"

Congratulations: instead of being dictated to, you've become a dictator to yourself. 

While this might work sometimes, from my own experience, inevitably it generates resentment. This resentment tends to manifest itself as restlessness. As you meditate and your mind becomes increasingly restless, your own mind is basically asking the natural follow-up question: "Why the !@#$% do I HAVE to?"And it then starts to wander from where you are. Restlessness is a manifestation of resentment at being here, now. 

The true answer is, you don't.

You don't have to be perfect.

You don't have to get straight As.

You don't even have to meditate, if you don't want to. Really. 

The last part is really the key to meditation consistency: to let your mind know that, hey, if you want to just sit here and dream on, that's fine. Hey, no worries if you can't focus on the breath. That's fine. If you want to fantasise about J-Lo, that's fine too. 

When you let go of the inner dictator and become a real friend to your own mind, yes, your mind might in the near term go a bit crazy. And you might become frustrated, impatient. When that happens, just remember that the frustration and impatience comes from being an inner dictator that is demanding results, and is fault-finding. 

Just relax. And be patient, and learn to be contented and be happy with whatever happens in your meditation, good or bad. 

Over time, your mind will naturally quieten down, naturally become contented, and it will then become tranquil and peaceful. 

And meditation then becomes something that you want to do. In the Buddha's words, your mind then "leaps towards meditation". Meditation is then something beyond a matter of force or discipline, but a pleasure that pulls you in.