What a Buddhist Monk Taught Me About the Importance of Continuity
Why practicing one minute daily is more beneficial than thirty minutes monthly
Dear Friend,
It’s a familiar pattern: You start meditating, feel better, and then stop. I regularly hear this from clients, and I’ve done it myself more times than I’d like to admit.
Here’s how it usually goes:
I consistently meditate. I feel better—less anxious, lighter, and more grounded. I think I’ve got this. Then I skip a day. Maybe I'm busy. Perhaps I feel so good that I don’t need it anymore.
Soon, one day turns into two. Then three. And before I know it, the same anxiety, impatience, and irritation I thought I'd left behind starts creeping back in. I think, What happened? I was doing so well.
The answer is simple: The practice I relied on—meditation—wasn’t broken. I just stopped showing up.
Eight years ago, I attended a meditation retreat with Bhikkhu Anālayo, a renowned meditation teacher and scholar. During the retreat, he told a story about Yehudi Menuhin, one of the greatest violinists of his generation.
“When Menuhin didn’t practice for one day, he noticed. After two days, his wife noticed. After three days, his friends noticed.” It’s a striking example of how quickly skill (or, in our case, qualities of mind) declines without continuity, even for someone at the top of their field.
Now, think about this in the context of meditation.
Menuhin practiced for decades to master the violin, but he couldn’t even take a few days off without losing his edge. If one of the best violinists needs daily practice to stay sharp, how can we expect to free ourselves from deeply ingrained habits and patterns of mind without continuity?
I’ve been meditating for 20 years. In that time, I’ve spent thousands of hours sitting in silence.
Here’s what I’ve learned:
When I meditate daily (45+ minutes these days), life feels lighter, more straightforward and less problematic. My mind is clearer, my heart is more compassionate, and my relationships are more peaceful and satisfying. There’s a steady sense of ease, and I know deeply that everything is okay or at least workable.
But when I stop meditating, the benefits fade.
At first, the changes are subtle. I’m a little more impatient. A little more judgmental. Over time, the effects build. Challenges feel heavier. Relationships become more strained. My mental clarity diminishes, and I'm less emotionally resilient. Life shifts from feeling steady to overwhelming.
Every time this happens, I come to the same conclusion: Meditation wasn’t the problem—my lack of continuity was.
Meditation is no different from any other practice. The benefits come from continuity. Gil Fronsdal said, “It’s hard to boil water if you keep turning down the heat.” The same principle applies here. You don’t need to meditate like a monk for hours every day. What matters is that you keep the heat on.
Even Bhikkhu Anālayo, who has meditated for tens of thousands of hours, still meditates six hours daily. Why? because he understands that without continuity, ego, duality, and the mind's intrinsic negativity will creep back in.
Start Small: You don’t need to sit for an hour daily. One minute is enough to build the habit (this is how I started). The important thing is showing up.
Focus on the Process: Don’t worry about feeling “enlightened” during or after meditating. Just focus on sitting (or lying) down and practicing.
Trust the Practice: Whether you're new to meditation or it has worked for you, it will work again. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel—keep returning to the practice.
Meditation isn’t sexy. It’s not always engaging. And it’s definitely not always easy. But the results are undeniable. When I meditate, I feel clear, spacious and high. When I don’t, I feel oppressed, overwhelmed and dissatisfied.
The key is to keep showing up. Because small, continuous daily practice leads to meaningful, lasting change. And remember, showing up every day can sometimes be tedious, but the results sure as hell aren’t.
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We don't sit to become better meditators. We sit to become better whatever we already ares.
My first year was merely the commitment to carve a habit, five minutes a day at the same time, coffee afterward. No increases allowed for that year, even if I felt like it. A year later, I doubled it. Sometime after that, I doubled it again.
Eleven-plus years on, I've sat two ten-day silent retreats and logged uncountable time in silence of some kind. I am no greater meditator today than I was in the beginning, but I can sit totally still a lot longer.
These days, I don't wonder why I'm still doing it. I did a lot of this wondering the first few years. I also don't feel the need to sit for two hours a day, as was prescribed during retreats. The more valuable piece of sitting is what I take into the standing and walking experience.
It's a pity then that consistency, habit, is so hard when you have an ADHD brain. Any habit I pick up, any consistency I manage to build, I'm likely to drop them with the speed of life when life intervenes and I (have to) skip more than once. James Clear advocates never skipping more than once. I don't use that rule, because building habits is hard for an ADHDer and it would just kead to being okay with doing it on alternate days. <sigh>