09 Aug Discouragement During Meditation

We often hear people complain,” I can’t meditate;” I’ve tried but it doesn’t work,” or “I’ve been meditating for so many months but nothing is happening”. However, the problem is usually that they are expecting too much too quickly.

We need to be realistic. Most of us have never in our lives tried to understand our mind or control our thought and feelings. Old habits are not easy to break. Even if the results of daily meditation don’t appear for two or three years - although this is highly unlikely- it should not be a cause for worry or despair.

Positive changes do not appear suddenly out of the blue, bye develop slowly, gradually, little by little every day, so be patient with yourself. Remember, just making an effort to understand and control the mind is meditation. If you are trying to do what is best for yourself and others, you can feel confident that your meditation is worthwhile.

Often, new meditators think that their negative minds are getting worse, not better! And they feel that it is meditation that has caused this. Consider, however, what happens when you wash clothes. When you first put them into the water, a certain amount of dirt comes out. As you continue to scrub them the water gets dirtier and dirtier. You might even be surprised by the amount of dirt that they contained. It would be foolish to blame the soup, water and the scrubbing for the dirt- the process of washing merely reveals what is there already, and is the right method for completely removing the dirt.

Similarly, meditation is the way to purify the mind of what is already there: at first we discover the gross negativities , then the more subtle ones.

References have been taken from: “How To Meditate by Kathleen McDonald”.