When we feel sadness, or frustration, or pain, then we feel badly about these feelings. We think we are supposed to feel better. So we feel pain, and then we feel ashamed of our pain. And then we concoct all sorts of activities or thought remedies to try to numb the pain and the shame of pain.

When we feel happy, or in one moment, our life seems to have meaning and importance, we think we must prolong this state. Lurking in the background is the knowledge that we surely won’t be able to prolong it, but we think we should be able to if we could just get it right. So we concoct all sorts of activities and thought remedies to try to prolong “happiness” and stave off its opposite.

We are constantly on guard. We are on guard against pain, failure, and disappointment. And we are on guard for happiness, success, and approval. We live constantly under the threat of pain and loss of happiness, or even the threat that we might realize, in one moment, that our experience of happiness is impoverished, not quite happiness at all.

When we begin a seated practice, we carry this pervasive sense of threat with us. The simple, nonjudging witness, of our breath or thoughts, for example, cannot help but become the anxious watcher. Are we doing it right? Are we feeling right? Are we getting the results? How fast are we getting the results compared to others? Ah… a moment of peace. I’m doing well. I’ll try to preserve that good result. Uh oh, here come the bad thoughts again. I’m doomed.

We have many concepts about what meditation or seated practice is supposed to bring us: from peace and bliss to boredom and physical discomfort. Or perhaps we are doing it mostly for approval from our teacher or some other person. Or so that we can feel good about ourselves by antidoting our sense of shame with “spiritual” behavior.

Tenzin Palmo, one of the first Western women to become a Buddhist nun, spent twelve years in retreat in a cave high up in the Himalayas. She wrote that after twelve years in solitude, there was no aspect of herself that had not made itself known to her.

The same process is at work when we begin a seated meditation practice. Everything that we are will show itself sooner or later. If we are physically stiff, we will hurt. If we are anxious and afraid, we will feel restlessness and terror. If we have squashed our natural liveliness with fantasy and overstimulation, we will feel boredom. If we are angry, we will find something or someone to be angry at. If we are sad, we may be overwhelmed by sadness. If we are seeking only peace, we will surely encounter frustration and disappointment. If we desire approval and realize that we are alone, we may feel bitterness and grief. Every little noise may seem amplified and unbearable.

Many people, finding that states of peacefulness or simple relaxation come and go, decide that meditation is not “working.” If they are uncomfortable, either physically or emotionally, they feel a sense of failure, perhaps even abandoning their practice because it didn’t immediately bring the good feelings they expected. They cannot sustain a seated practice because of these limiting concepts, and because the fear of naked self-encounter is too great.

Seated practice is a time and space given for us to encounter life expressing itself in all of its richness. Here, we can meet ourselves as we really are. We can begin to notice the ways in which we have used numbing out or frantic activity to muffle our awareness and true longing. We can also begin to experience contact with a larger sense of liveliness and awareness that holds all of us, without exception, in a compassionate, loving crucible. We can begin to relax, and eventually come to laugh at the devices and ruses we employ to escape Reality.

As in all Tantrik practice, you are an investigator of your real situation. Try to approach whatever discomfort arises with curiousity, gratitude, and discernment, but without judgment. View the emotions and sensations that arise as opportunities for greater awareness, rather than as shameful or as obstacles.

With this in mind, you can use your discernment to take appropriate action to assist the process of relaxation, for instance by shutting a window if there is excessive street noise, or by changing your diet and exercise so that you can sit with greater comfort and without so much fidgeting. A stubborn, heroic attitude is no less self-judging than indulging habitual feelings of failure and inadequacy. And you should bring any questions about your seated practice to your teacher so that adjustments can be made if necessary.

Everything that comes up in your seated practice is appropriate to your real situation. There is no threat, nothing outside. We need not guard against anything that arises during meditation. We need not reject or grab onto anything. Just let it rip. Only by relaxing our reflex to grab on or push away will we enjoy the full opportunity to discover what’s actually here, and find contentment within that unfolding Reality.

OM Shanti,
Shambhavi

Related Posts

• River of Light
• Pride and Progress
• How to Practice Tantra