photo from the site drunklastnight.com
Reckoning Day
Well I finally blew it. I knew this day would come, but it took a year and a half. I mixed my schedule up, thought I didn’t have group meditation and sipped a beer (Terrapin Hopsecutioner) after getting home from work early. Thirty minutes later It dawned on me that I had meditation in an hour and a half. Now the dilemma; should I skip and try again next week, or forge ahead. The fact that I had skipped the prior week, and a vague curiosity about what it would be like, prompted me to go. I can tell you this was not a good decision, but you will learn from my indiscretion.
In summary here are 5 reasons why you should not drink alcohol prior to meditation:
- It is one of the 5 precepts. In past blog posts I have talked about the 5 core Buddhist precepts. One of them is “no intoxicants.” For a year and a half I had made meditation day the one sacred day when I wouldn’t come home from work, reach in the refrigerator and pull out a beer.
- It makes you fidgety. Normally I could get into the half-lotus position in my favorite stadium style meditation seat and quickly get in the zone. Not this time. I squirmed, shifted and breathed noisily trying desperately to find a comfortable position and calm down.
- You can’t settle your mind. What is the whole point of meditation? To still the mind, to let go of the past, the present and the future. No attachments. This is impossible with intoxicants floating around in your blood stream exciting every thought that happens by your consciousness.
- You get sleepy. It can already be hard to stay awake in the relaxed state of meditation. You always hear at least one person every couple of sessions who starts snoring. Add alcohol to the mix and the fight to be alert yet relaxed is even harder to maintain.
- It wastes your time. At the end of meditation I felt I had just wasted an opportunity. Here was a block of time I had dedicated to improving my meditation practice and instead I had taken a step backwards. As you might have noted in other posts, I would typically leave practice with a very relaxed happy mindset, excited to return next week and do it again. No such feeling greeted me after this session.
So there you have it. Five reasons not to drink alcohol before meditation. I mentioned above it wasted my time. Maybe so, but I learned not to make that mistake and hopefully you have learned from my experience!
Question: Have you every had an alcoholic drink prior to meditation and what was your experience.