I don’t know about you, but I’m a perfectionist so that when I meditate I want to do it perfectly. In the past that meant sitting with a quiet, non-thinking, peaceful mind that never left the breath; of course, that also meant I always fell short of my ideal. After a while, when it came to meditation, I felt like a failure.
The problem, I discovered, was my definition of meditation, not me…the mediator. What I use now as my definition and purpose for mindfulness meditation comes from Venerable Henepola Gunaratana in his book, Mindfulness In Plain English. (I’m not linking this book to Amazon because it not easy reading and focuses on Buddhism, nevertheless, he’s written a great definition.)
He wrote: “The purpose of meditation is not to concentrate on the breath, without interruption, forever. That by itself would be a useless goal. The purpose of meditation is not to achieve a perfectly still and serene mind. Although a lovely state, it doesn’t lead to liberation by itself. The purpose of meditation is to achieve uninterrupted mindfulness…
“You can be mindful of the fact that your mind is still, and your concentration is strong, or you can be mindful of the fact that your concentration is in ribbons and your mind is in an absolute shambles. It’s all mindfulness.”
There are times that my meditation feels like I’m being tossed around in a rodeo, where success means that no matter how the mind/body tries to buck me off my cushion/chair…I hang in there until my iPhone chimes.
Meditating through the years, I’ve found that success isn’t about having a peaceful mind, rather that I keep meditating…that I don’t give up and get up when things get tough. Somehow, over time, the brain seemed naturally to rewire its self and the mind naturally became more comfortable, simply observing the mental, emotional, and physical rodeo that use to frighten me.
Now, even during the worst, mentally disrupted meditation, I make peace with a tossing, plunging mind, knowing that it’s all “good” meditation.
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I believe that meditation got a lot of benefits, now do you think it also has disadvantages?