Up at Five, Go Vegetarian, Find a Teacher: Three Instructions Every Beginner Hears

"What time can you get up?"

Aunt Út asked that the moment I mentioned I had started practising sitting meditation. Sunday lunch, the table still holding the pot of sour soup, my father peeling prawns, my cousin laughing at something on her phone. Before I could answer, she went on: "If you want to meditate properly, you have to get up at five. Early morning is the clear time."

Before the meal was over I had heard two more instructions. One about food, and one about needing someone to lead you. My aunt meant no harm. Everyone who gave me advice loved me. But when I got home I felt that the thing I had only been trying for a few days had grown three steps taller.

This is a walk through the three instructions I hear most, and hear other people say they hear as well. A slightly light tone is fine, because I believed all three myself once.

These three instructions are not absurd, and the people giving them are not bad people. Each has a part that is true, even when it comes from a family's tradition or someone you love. I am not telling you to ignore them. I only want to look at where the true part sits, so that you do not carry all three flights of stairs with you before you sit down the first time.

Do you have to be up at five to meditate?

The day after that lunch I set an alarm for five. The first morning it rang, I switched it off and lay there two more minutes to "wake up properly". Fifteen minutes later I opened my eyes and it was twenty past five. The second morning I did get up, sat down on the mat, and my head nodded, nodded, all through the sit.

"See, being serious means exactly this."

"You are just sleepy."

"Sleepiness is part of the training too."

That exchange ran in my head for about three mornings, and I lost on both sides.

The obvious reason is clear: early morning is quiet, so meditating early is easier. That part is real, as far as I can tell. But what lies under it is a little different: early morning is quiet because few people are calling on me, not because the clock says five. The instruction about five o'clock is really an instruction to pick a time when you are least likely to be interrupted. For my aunt, who has been up at half past four cooking rice all her life, that hour is a quiet one. For me, who sleeps late because work runs into the evening, the quiet hour is half past ten at night, when the house next door turns off its TV. Same idea, two different numbers.

The first time, many people are surprised that their "least called" time is not the one they expected. I guessed morning would be quietest, but morning had the highest number, because every morning I glanced at my messages before sitting. After about a week, some people settle on one steady hour, and some keep changing it from day to day. Both work. On a day too busy, sit for one minute at any time, no golden hour required.

One habit is easy to fall into: turning early rising into a punishment, as if discomfort is what makes you sincere. It appeals because it sounds disciplined, and because it gives you a clear score: got up today, failed today. But a sit where your head nods the whole time is hardly a sit. Keep your bedtime the way it was, and sit at whatever hour you are already awake.

Do you have to be vegetarian to be allowed to sit?

Tuesday lunch, the company canteen, Hằng at the next table scooped an extra spoon of braised pork onto my plate, laughing as she said: "You eat meat and still want to meditate?" Just a joke. I laughed too. But that afternoon I skipped the meal and gnawed an empty bread roll on the stairwell, feeling like someone at an entrance inspection.

What people think of first is that diet is connected to meditation. I am in no position to say whether vegetarian eating is good or bad for anyone, and this article is not about that. What you eat belongs to family tradition, belief, health and the size of your wallet. What I noticed lies elsewhere: the line "you eat meat and want to meditate" folds two separate things together, what you eat and sitting down, then turns the first into a condition for the second. The entrance gets a step higher, and that step does not belong to sitting.

The first time, many people find it feels no different, and that is an honourable result. Some people feel drowsy sitting after a meal and some feel nothing at all. After a week you usually know which gap suits you, and the number belongs to you, like nobody else's. On a busy day, no need to weigh anything, just sit three minutes whenever you can.

More common is going without things to qualify: skipping meals, eating unfamiliar food, writing yourself rules. It looks serious, which is exactly why it appeals. But if you have changed how you eat for your own reasons, keep going. If you changed it to deserve sitting, I would say don't. If your eating involves your health, ask a health professional rather than an article. And for one more belief from the same family, you do not need an hour of stillness to call it meditation takes apart another step on that staircase.

Without a teacher, how do you know you are sitting correctly?

"Which class are you taking?" Khoa asked, just as I was holding an iced milk coffee at the café at the end of the alley.

"None. I follow a guide and sit."

"Then how do you know it is right? What if it is wrong?"

That question moved into my head uninvited and stayed all week. I started sitting while worrying as I sat: were my hands in the right place, was I breathing correctly, and with a head running everywhere like this, any teacher would shake theirs.

The obvious reason is easy to follow: with a teacher you will surely be right. Some people find a guide or a group helps them a great deal, and I believe that, while others sit fine alone. Both are real. But what runs underneath Khoa's question is not a missing teacher. It is the fear of getting it wrong, and that fear hops from place to place: today it demands a teacher, tomorrow a fancy cushion, the day after it wants to know whether you are "improving". And the "right" of the early sits is actually very small: sit down, know that you are sitting, when you wander, come back. That is all.

The first time, many people find they cannot yet say yes to questions two and three, because they have not noticed wandering. I was the same. After about a week, some people can count a few times they wandered and came back, and some still feel hazy. Both mean you are doing it, not doing it wrong. On a busy day, ask only question three.

The habit that is hardest to spot here is looking for the best possible teacher instead of sitting: reading, comparing, asking around, saving ten more links. It appeals because it looks like careful preparation, and preparation is never marked wrong. Instead, sit first, and ask afterwards with a specific question, like "my shoulders tense every time I sit, is there another way". A specific question is one anyone can answer. If you are curious about sitting alone versus following a voice, three weeks with a guiding voice, then silence tells of one path.

If you try it your own way and it still feels uneasy

I would guess two common reasons.

The first: you have picked the hour you are least called, but your home has no quiet hour at all. There are kids, a neighbour drilling into a wall, a hot tin roof and a drinking place next door. Then do not hunt for a perfect hour. Pick the least bad one, and listen to the noise as part of the sit. Many people find it easier once they stop trying to remove noise from the sit.

The second: your real question is not what to eat, when to wake or who will teach you. It is "am I allowed". If so, the three instructions are only three shapes of it, and seeing that is already part of an answer. If you sit and feel heavy emotions for many days in a row, talk to a friend you trust or someone who works in mental health instead of managing alone.

And if neither fix suits you, that is fine too. Some people do well with a class or a group, and some do better walking slowly around the alley than sitting. Try it and see.

The Sunday evening after, Aunt Út asked again: "What time are you getting up now?"

I smiled and ladled her another spoon of sour soup.

"Whatever time I can sit, Auntie, that is when I sit."