The Myth & Pitfalls of Meditation “Progress”
A good friend surprised me with a little trinket the other day that really made me smile at a particularly stressful time. It’s a little key fob Buddha with a button on his back that you can push to turn on an LED flashlight to find the keyhole to your home, that lost lipstick in the bottom of your purse, or the last jujubee you just dropped on the floor of the movie theater (best to practice “letting go” of that last one. Really.)
I had a little fun with my gift by sharing it on Facebook with the photo of it (on the right). Here’s what I wrote:
“Thank you Michelle for my new Buddha LED Light Key Fob! Apparently when you become enlightened then some of that light shines out of your butt. The problem is that as soon as you get up off the meditation cushion to see if it’s shining, you aren’t enlightened any more and the light is off. Kind of the reverse of the whole “does the light in the refrigerator really go off when you close the door?” dilemma. Ahh, enlightenment is soooo complicated and paradoxical.”
A friend responded with the inquiry “Does this mean you have to be on the cushion to be enlightened?” A reasonable question, but in general I find myself so unable to address any issues around enlightenment that my eyes glaze over and the best I can do is an enigmatic smile and a deep wish that the conversation would shift to subjects I can handle like “Will the Oakland Raiders EVER Return to Glory?” (Feel free to post a response to this blog on that question if the whole meditation thing doesn’t pique your interest. I could use a little hope in that regard!)
What I was referring to in my Facebook post was that inevitable pull we feel to check to see how we are doing, whether it is relative to how we USED to be doing, or how OTHER PEOPLE are doing, or (even more problematic) how WE THINK WE SHOULD be doing. But in the end we are just doing. Or more accurately, just being. No comparisons necessary. Contrary to almost everything else these days, meditation is not a competition, you can’t do it better, faster, bigger or more fuel-efficiently than anyone else. As Jon Kabat-Zinn says in a chapter called “This Is It” from Wherever You Go, There You Are:
People usually don’t get this right away. They want to meditate in order to relax, to experience a special state, to become a better person, to reduce some stress or pain, to break out of old habits and patterns, to become free or enlightened. All valid reasons to take up meditation practice, but all equally fraught with problems if you expect those things to happen just because now you are meditating. You’ll get caught up in wanting to have a “special experience” or in looking for signs of progress, and if you don’t feel something special pretty quickly, you may start to doubt the path you have chosen, or to wonder whether you are “doing it right.”
Trust me on this one. I have the true test to see if you are doing it right. Ready?
Question #1: Are you meditating (aka “doing it?) ____Yes ____No
If your answer was yes, you are doing it right.
So consider this: “What would it be like to let go of needing to see any signs of progress and only practice for its own sake?” Would that be possible? I would invite you to see what that might be like.
And quit peeking to check to see if you’re enlightened yet. You’ll probably just tumble off the cushion and hit your head on the floor anyway. Hardly very enlightening, but then again, sometimes a good (figurative) whack upside the head is what we need to remember to just sit As Jon Kabat-Zinn says, “This is it.”