What is the point of a daily spiritual practice?

[ktaylor]

To my understanding, most legitimate spiritual practices advocate daily practice. What is the difference between practicing everyday, and practicing say, once every two days, or twice every three days for instance? In ways of training the body it is often beneficial to give a day or two rest in between practice, can it be the same in matters of the mind and spirit? Does the consciousness, in its progression/development, need some occasional respite? Or are the constant recoils and obstacles that emerge in one's mind and life to disrupt daily practice merely things that need to be stoically ignored? Does one 'lose out' if they do not practice everyday? Or is it a matter of adapting the amount and intensity of sadhana to where one is at at that point in time?

[Jonesboy]

Think of spiritual practices like a snow ball rolling down the mountain. In the beginning it rolls just a a little and starts out small.

 

One session a week it moves a little. Twice a day keeps it moving . Over time with consistent practice the ball gets bigger and bigger as do the results of the practice. 

 

Life gets busy, sometimes you just can’t meditate or you are in such a state the practices would be counter productive. Shit happens.

 

The main thing is to do your best and to be as consistent as you can. Spiritual practices are a lifetime thing so don’t sweat having a cheat day so to speak. Just realize where cheat days can lead you if you have to many. Just like a diet.

Edited September 29, 2018 by Jonesboy

[Fa Xin]

Nicely put jonesboy. 

 

For the times you don’t feel like meditating or whatever, there’s plenty of other things to do. 

 

Its possible to find enlightenment in any moment and any activity, so long as you remain present. 

 

Chopping wood, carrying water in modern day terms - mowing the lawn and grocery shopping. 😊

[Integrated]

I'd say it depends on what the spiritual practice entails.

Some mediation is almost like a break, some are more intensive.

 

Doing it everyday is probably good, but how much time one can spare/stand,

is both an individual thing, and also something that depends on what it entails.

 

There are spiritual breaking points as well as bodily breaking points.

What one identifies as those breaking points depends again on ones tradition and what one actually do.

Yet spirituality and psychology are closely linked/intertwined, and hence if one is unbalanced in ones psyche,

then one might not be able to stand much spiritual practice before "burning out".

 

Whatever one does, one should test out ones stamina and adjust the level to that.

Some things are better measured through repetitions, other by time, and maybe there are some other units that feels natural to you.

Whatever one ends up doing, starting small and building is never wrong.

Maybe just one repetition or one minute.

 

If one cannot handle that, one should look oneself in the mirror and ponder deeply if that is a reflection on oneself or the practice.

It is usually both, and often one has waded into more advanced stuff than one was ready for.

[Everything]

When you meditate, and focus on your breathing, you stop thought. Often it is easier for people to stop thought than to think pure positive thought. So as you return your awareness to your breath, or something else easy you can place your attention on, that doesn't encourage thought, and you don't encourage thought, so by simply returning your awareness to your object of attention. What happens is you eventually release all momentum of any negative or resistant vibrational gravitational thought patterns, and perspectives. And in a sense, your mind is no longer offering resistant, discordant vibrations. It doesn't matter who taught them to you or where they came from or where you addopted them from, even if you've been practicing those resistant thought patterns your whole life, one meditation is enough to release all of thought, in your now. And that's all is necessary to find the relief and healing. Be it perspective or any story thought pattern or judgement, it doesn't matter. Meditation allows one to easily let go then. What happens is the natural high pure fast pure positive energy vibration of your true non-physical core essence of your being is the only thing that is left, and your entire body and mind, everything slowly raises to that high state of being all by itself, because if you don't do anything to prevent that from happening, meaning think thoughts of discord, then that's what happens. You return to your natural default state of being of infinite value. Cause it's the thoughts and perspectives and thought patterns that have "momentum" that has caused the lowering of the vibration. So as that momentum peters out, and you slowly return to your natural high state of being, as your default natural state of being, you not only learn that you are good by nature, but you also become more sensitive and less tolerant for whatever in your life doesn't harmonize with the core truth of your being. And it is not the "things" in your life that are bad or good. It's your perspective of them that causes you to lower your vibration and to experience discord with your natural pure state of high vibrational essence of being.

So at first, usually all hell breaks loose. People meditate, feel great relief and peace and love, and then the next time they return to those old thought patterns, they will instantly feel as if a huge bullet shot their heart. Bang! Now they finally feel how much that believe/thought pattern is so different from who it is they know they truely are! And instantly, sometimes, you're so sensitive and consciously aware after coming out of a meditation that has you feeling so good, that you can sense even before you enter a discordant perspective that you are about to enter a discordant perspective. So you step back and move the other way. And soyou prevent the snowball from ever rolling in the first place. And that is what you wanna do in your life. Get ahead of it, prevent the bad from happening. And it's not that you have to do anything to prevent that! You just have to learn to stop doing that which blocks the good from happening. Period. Because you are by very nature infinitely and purely good.

So as you experience a perspective or thought that doesn't feel good. I can't look at that anymore. I can't practice this perspective anymore. It hurts too much now. I can't return to that, if only to understand I wanna feel better more of the time and be inspired more of the time and enjoy my life more of the time.

And so you let go more of the time and meditate more, and that's of great benefit because it improves your life in every aspect.

And the deeper you go the more you allow your true non-physical core essence of nature to flow more and become the dominant radiance in your life, so in a sense, you stop all thought, and then what is left, is the perspective of your own inner eternal nature of infinite wisdom and infinite intelligence and infinite freedom and infinite love. And you allow that to establish it's frequency and sequence of natural pure infinite value in your body and feeling, and mind, etc. At first you can just feel it as tingling in your body that feel good. Sensations of pleasure. As those vibrations move through you, it is your very own life force and now you allow it to flow through you without any hinderance whatsoever. And those manifestations of good feelings is at first your first evidence that you're on track. And secondly things start showing up in your life that you've always wanted. And those feelings turn into ideas and thoughts and inspirations to act upon things and in certain ways. And everything in your life improves.

 

But to say that one meditate is less worthy than two, or to say that the deeper the meditation, the better? You can say that that is true, but never take away the fact that no matter how small, even the smallest of meditation can be of huge and tremendous benefit. It can elleviate extreme suffering and prevent things that are completely unnecessary and self perpetuating snowballing piles of shit.

So one simple meditation of relaxing even one moment in just one month, and that small simple meditation will yield it's benefit all the way till the end of the month and even beyond that. For you will remember how you found relief in the meditation, so next month as you stand face to face with all the sht you've created in your experience and you see no way out of it, you meditate again and find relief and thereby everything in your mind and body can serve you more due to that small re-emergence into your natural default state of being in high pure fast pure positive energy vibration.

 

And the best and most beneficial and most easy way of meditating is early in the morning, when you are at your clearest. And even at night as you fall into sleep, then you will instantly notice waking up and already being in that high flying pure positive energy state of being, that is like going through life with your plug attached to the socket of the Source of all Creation. And that is of highest service to yourself and those around you aswell. And you can know you're fully allowing your connection, with all of that, or not, by virtue of the way you feel, in every single moment of your life. For if you feel absolutely wonderful, you're allowing the essence of all that you are to flow through you in this very moment.

 

And yeah, you can let go of any resistant patterns in your physical being and allow your full nature to flow through you in any moment in other ways than meditation aswell. It doesn't matter how you do it, wether running/jogging down a beautiful path of nature in the fresh air, or listening to amazing music, or even having sex. But meditation is often the most effective and most easy and most universally applicable form of allowing your true nature to flow through in the moment. For it doesn't require anything but place your awareness on something that doesn't cause discord within you and to just be and allow yourself being in the moment. So everyone can do it. And so all the wise teachers advocate for it's tremendous value.

Edited September 29, 2018 by Everything

[rex]

Momentum. There’s many distractions, consider if what you have done today brings you closer to where you want to be tomorrow. No diligence, no progress.

Edited September 29, 2018 by rex
tpyo

[RiverSnake]

Consistency is key. Practice breeds skill in cultivation. At the same time its good to know when to take a break and allow the internal wiring to cool down and integrate....this is currently something that i'm training. 

[Gerard]

Because if you just knew what is actually going on inside/within you, then you'll know that daily practice is MANDATORY. And the earlier you start in life, the better.

 

 

[dawei]

It's an interesting thread because I think likely most have thought this at some point, or even asked, 'why am I doing this?'.

 

So why ?  Because we lost the natural connection and sense of inter-dependence and unity to not just earth but to heaven and all deities.   As the world turns, so does our distance to these thing, in a sense...   we can blame advancements in society and influx of distractions... but we just need to see where we are.

 

There is a great range among mankind:  Some are very much connected most of the day and others 'need' to practice to feel any sense of energy or spirit.   One is likely not going to progress too far in a single lifetime if you feel too disconnected but as Laozi said, a thousand mile journey starts with a step... so take that first step.

 

Realize that earthly energy that what most sense is more coarse and Qigong level with seeking heavenly Qi help, which is simply less coarse.  But, as Baopuzi said, and radically changed me, practice is not natural.  It took me a lot of practice in Qigong and Medical Qigong to finally get this word...   Here is what I understood:   As long as you are in a 'doing mode', you are always going to need repetitive practice and rest in cycles.  There is an inherently 'otherness' going on in such practices: I am here and want to get there. My energy is here and I want energy from there, etc.

 

If one get to the more unified level, it is like how often do you simply 'look' at your surrounding and realize you are one with it.  So those moments can come and go, a thousand times even... but it is still doing practice.    

 

Here is where I am:  See turning on on a car and the engine starts... it is a matter of how long the engine keeps running on its own.  There is a slight doing to it, the first moment, but once it starts, it runs in unity...  but the focus is hard to maintain because of life.   So there is a consistency of trying to do, non-doing.   

 

Why all the interference and stop and go?  Blockages and stagnation and stuff that won't clear.   That is ultimately why consistency is needed, to get past the constant blocks we have.... to get to a place where we flow in unison.

 

My final spoiler is that Qigong and even Medical Qigong are just too coarse an energy level, but they may be a revealing path. If you can find Light Level will you see this because you can look in any direction and find anyone, even a deity because there is no separation.  

[doc benway]

On 9/28/2018 at 7:10 PM, ktaylor said:

To my understanding, most legitimate spiritual practices advocate daily practice. What is the difference between practicing everyday, and practicing say, once every two days, or twice every three days for instance?

The purpose of daily practice is multi-fold - it engenders familiarity, skill, and habit. It helps to interrupt the status quo and replaces more mundane, less beneficial activity, with spiritually nurturing and supportive activity.

 

On 9/28/2018 at 7:10 PM, ktaylor said:

In ways of training the body it is often beneficial to give a day or two rest in between practice, can it be the same in matters of the mind and spirit?

That is the point of meditation, depending on your tradition of course. The mind never gets a rest. It is always working and the majority of its effort and activity is wasteful. Meditation allows us to attend to the mind like we would attend to the body. It allows us to learn how to rest and open the mind in new ways.

 

On 9/28/2018 at 7:10 PM, ktaylor said:

Does the consciousness, in its progression/development, need some occasional respite?

Yes, if one is feeling burnout related to spiritual practice an occasional break or holiday is fine and supportive.

 

On 9/28/2018 at 7:10 PM, ktaylor said:

Or are the constant recoils and obstacles that emerge in one's mind and life to disrupt daily practice merely things that need to be stoically ignored?

Stoically ignoring these obstacles is not the method in most traditions. They are worked with in a variety of ways.

If ignoring them is the only tool you have right now, it's fine to use that. With training and practice, you will use other tools.

 

On 9/28/2018 at 7:10 PM, ktaylor said:

Does one 'lose out' if they do not practice everyday? Or is it a matter of adapting the amount and intensity of sadhana to where one is at at that point in time?

Yes, I think a daily practice is very valuable in most spiritual traditions. 

We wash our body daily (most of us), we take care of our teeth, gums, nails, hair, etc...

Take a few minutes and attend to the mind, it is worthy of that much at least.

Over time, formal practice sessions become less important  and integration of the practice into our daily life takes priority. 

At that point, it is no longer about a daily practice but an hourly or moment to moment practice.

[dosa]

The spiritual practices should be rest. it is not because of progress. 

[silent thunder]

Some time ago practice shifted.  Where it used to be dietary, it is now medicinal.

[RiverSnake]

Why practice baseball? If you wanna get good at baseball you practice. 

 

Same thing with cultivation. Cultivation is about growing yourself as a human being.

 

We are not static beings. With the correct amount of sunshine, soil and water we can turn into great and powerful trees. Cultivation is the kind of effort that gets you there....it rarely happens on its own...intent is required. 

[Gerard]

Indeed! Mind over matter because if you let matter dominate you, Mind slowly fades away and you live the life of a 'brute': desires, imbalance, ego, society's way rather than higher wisdom.

 

But Yin & Yang need to be both balanced.

 

Yin: matter

Yang: Mind/spirit (same thing)