“When your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to anything. There are many options for beginners, but few for experts. "~ Shunryu Suzuki
So many of us come to meditation through suffering. Almost everyone who has come to walk the spiritual path can tell a story of sadness, frustration, and often desolation. Through our life struggles and difficulties, we are conditioned into habitual patterns of mind that seem to offer no escape, and we often turn to meditation for relief.
I always say that fear was my first spiritual teacher and taught me from a young age.
I have spent a lot of time and effort controlling my experience in order to limit my suffering. I have now come to the realization that the illusion of control is the root of fear as our stress is compounded by our inability to accept that we do not know what is going to happen in life.
In my early forties, life gave me a situation that would eventually overwhelm my ability to control life. Over a period of seven years, my son Mark struggled mightily, suffered deeply, and fought valiantly to ward off addictions and mental illness.
Lost in my own mental struggles, I tried to meet his difficulties through my habitual need to control life. Anyone who has ever had a loved one with addiction knows that we are never in control of the situation. Even so, I foolishly pushed my way forward, selfishly trying to control Mark's experience.
I can remember the day that Mark was diagnosed with schizophrenia. My inner controller had a moment of "I can't do this anymore" and finally came to the clear realization that there was no way for me to control his situation.
Something was moving inside of me and I felt the "controller" let go of its grip on me. There was nothing to control. Only life moved, and life should only be lived as it comes.
Tragically, in 2017, Mark lost his battle against addiction. I saw that Mark was my spiritual guru all along, teaching me how to love compassion, love unconditionally, and how to let go of the need to control life
Mark opened the door to meditation for me by teaching me how to let go. He opened my heart to accept what is what it is and taught me how to begin to get rid of the old habitual conditioning patterns of my mind.
I have officially been sitting for about four years and although I now feel very good about my practice, I made a fair share of "mistakes" along the way.
One of the biggest mistakes I made was trying to use meditation as a means to an end. I wanted to feel better and thought that if I sit "well" enough, I would find peace. At first I did not realize that this spirit that tried so hard to find relief from suffering was the same spirit that had caused my suffering.
I've spent a lot of time spinning my wheels trying to find the right formula to calm my mind. I thought if I focused hard enough, if I focused properly on the breath, if I limited outside noises and distractions … then my mind would calm down and I would find the truth. The mind was the one that was constantly searching for the right formula, the right way, the right insight.
It was almost two years before I finally realized that regardless of what the mind decided, if the method came from the mind, it would actually prevent me from relaxing into the silence beyond the mind.
This was just one of the many mistakes I made. If I cared too much about how long I sat in meditation, trying to restore blissful feelings, determining whether I was enlightened or not, all of them helped keep my ape sanity going.
If you have had similar frustrations with your practice, do not be discouraged. Do not stop. There is no wrong way to meditate because all "mistakes" only serve to exacerbate our suffering and therefore increase our seriousness to come back to meditate again. Life is very good at failing over our own disabilities.
When you have started and stopped meditating, started and stopped, let years go by, started again and stopped, you are in good company. Everyone gets frustrated and stops a few times before developing a good practice. In fact, one has to stop "trying" to meditate before actually waking up to what meditation is about.
So let's go into a little more detail about these errors that we want to avoid …
1. Trying to calm the mind
As I mentioned before, the main reason we meditate is because we want to silence the insane chatter in our mind. Our monkey minds are pretty relentless. It's like with the Terminator: "It cannot be negotiated. It cannot be justified. It is not pity, remorse or fear. And it will never stop until you…" are spiritually awakened.
So why shouldn't we try to calm the mind?
The best way to answer this is to ask: Who is trying to silence the mind? Take your time and check this out. What you will find is that your mind is trying to calm the mind. How could what is the main cause of the problem also be the source of the solution? It can't. It will not listen to our desire to be set free. It is only interested in promoting its continuity and increasing its own importance.
Our mind, which wants to calm our mind, creates additional internal conflicts. This inner conflict gives the mind more fuel, and so our attempt to meditate and calm the mind has only resulted in more struggles and frustrations.
To get around this dilemma, we have to "do nothing". Sit down and watch what comes and goes. Patient, passive, non-reactive observation is your superpower. Whatever thoughts arise, let them come. Whatever thoughts go, let them go.
It may take some time to get into observer mode, but as soon as we realize that it is possible to observe the mind from a point of neutral consciousness, the mind's reign of terror is nearing its end.
2. Sitting too early too long
I think a lot of us sit down in meditation and imagine turning into a Zen master on the first day. We heard that an hour of meditation is a really good meditation, so we decide to sit for an hour.
Within the first minute we relived every embarrassing event in our life from preschool to this moment. We sit and wrestle with our thoughts like a Chihuahua puppy tied to a fire hose at full force. We are tossed around by our own mind like a rag doll in this mental octagon. Beat to a bloody emotional pulp. Our will is broken …
We stop after five minutes and swear never to sit in meditation again.
Don't do this to yourself. Start slowly! Meditation is no different than lifting weights. Trying to do too much too soon will only hurt yourself.
Do a minute or two for the first week or two. After that, add a minute or two every week, trying to slowly work your way up to at least twenty minutes a day.
This is not a competition. They do not receive awards for enduring harsh conditions or adversity. Enjoy the trip. Take your time.
3. Stopping too early
So we worked our way up to 20 minutes a day. We've been sitting for twenty minutes now for two days and feel … nothing. Everything feels the same. The mind still wanders. The monkey mind is still in charge and still kicking us around and we get frustrated.
The mind whispers that this is all a really big waste of time and you fell for it again! How long will you listen to this spiritual guru who is unemployed and has no money? Of course he's at peace. He never does anything …
Don't give up.
Meditation is like walking in the fog. We don't notice much of anything and then we find ourselves soaking wet. If the mind pressures us without seeing results, then observe these thoughts too.
There is no set time frame for calming the mind, but if you are patient you will begin to experience "gaps" of stillness in the mind. These small gaps are a good indication that the mind is fed up with not getting a response from us. So be patient. Relax. Assume the posture that you will be sitting until your last breath and having no results will not put you off.
4. The attempt to recreate meditative phenomena
The bliss! Give me some more of this bliss. Can never have enough bliss! Anyone who has experienced the feeling of euphoric bliss in meditation has definitely tried to recreate it. If you say you don't have it, you are lying.
Everything that occurs in meditation is a phenomenon. Bliss, lights, colors, auras, sounds, images, dreams, out-of-body experiences, clairvoyance, receiving messages, full-body orgasm euphoria, extraterrestrial contact, angels, numbers, time travel, space travel … It's all just phenomena and it has no real meaning in the grand scheme of awakening.
If you fall in love with phenomena, it means that the mind is in love with phenomena. The point of meditation is to relax in the awareness of the moving life. The awareness of the movement of life includes awareness of the movement of the mind. If we fall into the role of the mind trying to restore our meditative experience, we have most likely fallen out of the neutral witness role.
A good rule to remember is to relax and let what comes and let go. Nothing needs to be created. Nothing needs to be removed. Just relax with what is.
5. Have expectations of your practice
It is natural to start a meditative practice because we want to feel better. Our minds give us problems. Our relationships never work. We are overworked, underpaid and stressed. We mourn the loss. We are tired. Sometimes we just want to give up. It's all too much.
Who would like to feel better again? Who holds this expectation that meditation will be the cure we've been waiting for? The mind! The mind is interested in feeling better, so we create more internal conflicts again. The mind doesn't like how life moves, it wants to make life better. We play the tug of war with ourselves …
Every expectation to get something out of meditation delays getting something out of meditation. If you don't want anything, you get something. That something is peace of mind.
With the deepening of the consciousness for what is, peace of mind arises. When we meditate without expectation, the inner conflict of the mind dissolves. No fuel is added if we are not expecting anything. Relaxation without anticipation is how the mind begins to calm down.
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In summary, even if we make some or all of these five meditation mistakes, life will continue to use our suffering as a means to bring us back to our spiritual practice and meditation.
Do not try to calm your mind. Don't try too much too soon. Don't stop too early. Do not try to restore a comfortable meditation session. Have no expectations.
Just sit down. Relax and be with what is.
About William Howells
William Howells is an avid New Jersey writer and spiritual advisor who uses what he has learned through his own spiritual awakening to change the lives of others. He is extremely passionate about his heart points and has a deep desire to help spiritual seekers awaken to the truth of this existence. Follow his Twitter account https://twitter.com/TGinormous for daily quotes and inspiration.
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