Please forgive me if this is not a proper space to discuss the long journey from starting point (no meditation) to desired goal (daily meditation 80% or more of days) for someone living in an individualist and undisciplined culture;
Like many others in such a situation I suspect, I go thru spells where I don’t meditate. I’m still trying to understand why, in order that I can eventually stop doing so. Even right now I’m playing a game of some sort with myself by making this post, but that’s actually beside the point.
I finally noticed one correlation: the spells line up (sometimes) with periods where I’m “angry at the world” in some sense … feel bitter disappointment at dreams which didn’t come to pass for some unjust or unaccepted reason, etc etc etc. This turns into sullen (or hot & fiery, depending) resistance, and then I don’t meditate for a while until I get over it. But sometimes this takes months, and anyway, it’s the exact opposite of what I need to be doing in such a situation. So ideally I could come to understand this and dispense with the whole pointless resistance part.
Anyway. Just posting to paint myself into a corner so that I have to stop skipping, but, I am curious if there is anyone else out there who has noticed this.
It is important to learn to meditate not based on your moods. There are important things to learn and skills to develop while meditating with difficult feelings present.