We have to admit at least once in a while we fall asleep in our sitting meditation, we don’t mean to, but it happens.  Usually how I realize this is happening beyond the yawning, is falling forward and then catching yourself and going back to a normal posture.  One time in a meditation session that I was in, I actually heard someone snoring, it wasn’t a soft snore, but quite a deep one.  The Buddha recognized lack of energy being a huge hindrance to our meditation.  Even one of the monks, Moggallāna, who was to become one of his two chief disciples had a problem with falling asleep in his meditation.  If he could overcome it, then you can to.  The Buddha gave him some different things to try to wear off his sleepiness.

At the time of the Buddha, there weren’t things such as Red Bull or no-doze, so he gave different techniques to work in the mind and the physical body to try to remove sleepiness.  First, the Buddha told him do not keep your mind on thoughts of drowsiness when they come to you.  If that did not cure it, he recommended to contemplate some aspect of the Dhamma (body of teachings) to try to inspire him out of his tired body.  When all else fails, the Buddha told him to get physical and try a couple things with his body to try to wake him up.  He was told to rub his ear-lobes, rub his arms with his hands, or splash water on his face.  If he was outside under either night sky or the sun, he was told to look to the stars or the sun and focus on the light as to inspire a mind to be without clouds, so it can shine brightly.  He told this monk to do walking meditation, so when he walked, he would be fully aware of how he is walking and all the sensations associated with it.  The last advice that the Buddha gave him sounds a bit counterintuitive: lie on your right side, placing foot on foot, always keeping your mind on thoughts of being awake and getting up from the lying position.  When he gets up from this lying position, he must maintain the thought “I will not indulge my desire to rest or lie down, for the pleasure of sleeping.”

In my own practice, I have found one technique that really seems to generate mental energy (viriya in Pali) within myself, it is the practice of loving-kindness (metta in Pali).  Even if I focus loving-kindness on myself and possibly a few other people who are near and dear to me in my life, it seems to uplift me and energize myself.  We can also see this apply when we are sick and aren’t really feeling like doing anything.  You can use this metta practice to give you energy to wake up out of a stupor and get things done.  Changing our attitude and mood is what we are trying to do in all these techniques, so if there is something you can do that can bring you into a better mood, like playing a favorite song or reading an inspiring poem, then do it as long as it doesn’t involve taking drugs or alcohol.  If we start each day with a metta practice, we bring the mind towards a positive attitude early on in the day, then you have a lot more energy and a greater ability to fend off things that would otherwise bring you down.

Viriya can also be translated as perseverance or effort or vigor, which adds a whole other take on this concept.  Not only do we want to reduce sleepiness (or sloth and torpor as some texts describe it), but sometimes we need something that can give us a boost in our practice.  We may get discouraged or loose a bit of faith, so sometimes we need a kick start.  When I was sent to study at a monastery that was a lot more quiet and less busy than the city temple I was studying in, my knowledge, confidence, and faith in the Dhamma increased manyfold.  By a greater amount of time to study books on Buddhism, especially the original teachings and of learning more of the traditional Theravada Buddhist chanting in the language of Pali, it kicked my practice into high gear.  If your practice is slowing down or in a rut, then read a few passages from the Buddha’s teachings and let it inspire you to continue on the path.

Often times, in some meditation groups, the teachings of the Buddha are also talked about in addition to the meditation practice.  Without the inspiration of a person just like you or me who reached his full potential and listening to his teachings, it makes for a difficult struggle for people to continue their meditation practice.  Sometimes when teaching meditation, the challenges that we face in the meditation aren’t always discussed but are very much there.  We often need courage to face our inner demons that will eventually pop up in the meditation practice after a person has practiced for a while.  Without this bedrock, this foundation of teachings and the inspiration of the Buddha’s enlightenment, we can all to easily fall from our practice and become discouraged from pursuing it further, despite the profound changes it may have on our lives.

Another technique that we can use if our practice is stuck, is the practice of metta, even if you practice just a little bit of it, your meditation will have generated a positive change in your mind and give you the space to get back into your normal practice.  In fact, the Buddha actually said that if in a just a finger-snap, you develop a thought of loving-kindness and dwell on it, then your meditation is not in vain and you are practicing his teachings well.

Let us remember the Buddha’s recommendations for getting out of a sleepy meditation session and recall he didn’t advocate for energy drinks, but focusing the mind on aspects of his teachings, abstaining from thoughts of sleepiness, to rubbing your ear lobes and arms, to splashing your face with water, and finally doing walking meditation and using the lying down position to generate a desire to not fall asleep.  Also recall that we can generate energy through the use of loving-kindness in our meditation to give us that extra boost that can keep us from falling over and hitting the person meditating next to us.  Remember that through studying the Buddha’s teachings, we can develop a strong base for our practice, so we can persevere in light of the difficult challenges that we may face in our practice and trying to continue with the practice.  Lastly, make use of metta to bring you into a more awakened mental state and to give you the energy to persevere through difficult times in your practice.

Blessings,

Sucāra