Encountering Difficulties in Meditation

Practicing Meditation is a proven way to unwind your brain with all it’s looping and circular thoughts. We are told to take a seat, close our eyes and become aware of our breath.

Many of us are really surprised at what comes next. There’s so much activity in our minds! Thoughts we may have been unaware of now come springing forward. It’s very busy in there.

The usual instruction for this “problem” is generally:

It’s actually NOT a problem. Everyone encounters this. And, in fact, even experienced meditators find their minds hurrying down looping paths in the midst of a meditation. As Sharon Salzberg says, the moment that you become aware that you have been carried away with your thoughts is the moment of real insight.

So, rather than being frustrated by the thoughts, you can see them as little opportunities. To come back again and again.

And, you will notice as you continue to practice with kind curious and open attention, that the constancy of the thoughts is interrupted.

One student said to me that the idea of being away from her stream of thoughts was very alarming. She felt she might disappear.

Maybe this is a fear you have as well. I know when i first began to explore the deep stillness and emptiness that can come during meditation that I felt some fear as well. What might arrive in my thought’s stead?

What I found was difficult to express in words. But, essentially, it is.

1. always there

2. always available

3. spacious, open and accessible awareness beyond the idea of a small “me”