meditation

You can do this now by focusing on the feeling that there is much more to life than you understand.

We're telling ourselves a story about who we are and what life is, and we're confusing this story with reality.

But, meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It’s about feeling the way you feel.

Here are some rules of thumb that might help you navigate whatever practice you are trying out.

1. Criticizing, judging, or assessing yourself isn’t virtue. It doesn’t help in meditation; it’s just more noise. And if you are criticizing, judging, or assessing yourself, don’t criticize that, and so on, until you wear out and compassion enters.


2. Criticizin

When we meditate for a purpose—to be calm, to gain insight—we are striving, not meditating. If we spend our time assessing how we are doing, we are defending ourselves against the intimacy of life, not letting it get hold of us.

Meditation is not about manufacturing a state of mind that’s clear, calm or full of insight. It’s about interfering less and less with what is actually here.

Can you find where this moment comes from or where it goes home to?

You’ll try as much as you need to try till you’re convinced that trying doesn't work. It's self-defeating, it prevents settling down, and that's going to make meditation tedious. Most people go through a certain amount of this. It's clearly recorded that the Buddha did, and that his enlightenment came when he finally stopped trying. You try for a