Best Of

From my perspective, today...

While concentration is a necessary skill to develop to meditate,
mistaking that concentration for meditation is an attachment in the making.
As some Tibetans warn about some forms of meditation....Don't become like a cat watching a mousehole.
In other words, are you just observing the ebb and flow of all the phenomena that is arising, living, and departing or are you trying to direct it?
There is just about every possible feeling in the world that will arise at some time or another in a meditation practice. Judging our meditation in response to such visitations shows where we have chosen to shift back into a habituated mentality over what the meditation process offers.
Addressing the unknown, compared to what we've known, can often be challenging (and tiring) but is it not what we've been beckoning to?
3 steps forward - 2 steps back.

I find I get the best results when I have no goal other than meditation itself. When I expect the improvement to be gradual throughout my life. At first I needed a bit of faith but once I saw the benefits happening gradually I stopped worrying about doing it "right". Then again, I had formal instruction and doubt I would have seen as much improvement going it alone.

All meditation practitioners who honestly persevere will eventually have awakenings of differing strengths and longevity. The most common prelude to such things though seem to arise when the practitioner no longer seeks out such experiences.

Yep that's right 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾

The higher the expectations, the greater the disappointment...

I ask myself that sometimes. I've rarely experienced deep concentration or blissed out type meditations. My meditation life has largely been about returning to the experience of the body and letting go of thoughts. Just that has a profound impact on my well being. So I always try to learn and improve but I don't sweat it, whatever it is I am doing seems to have a positive impact.

I experience the same, the chatter goes at some point. Wish me luck.

Have I ever truly meditated?

There are probably as many definitions of meditation as there are practitioners.
Some questioning of whether you are truly meditating or not, tends to be a less deluded space to practice within than just assuming that your meditation is true.

The real difficulty however in attaining a satisfactory answer to this question is more tied up in our attachments to a sense of self than it is about whether our meditation technique is true or not.

If the human condition is seen as a dream state of our ego or identity's storyline,
meditation is simply our attempted disassembly of the constructs of that dream.

To the degree that one approaches meditation as something to be acquired & possessed, is the same degree to which one's slumbering continues over any real awakenings.
To the degree that one approaches meditation as a renunciation of one's attachments, is the same degree to which the question answers itself.

All meditation practitioners who honestly persevere will eventually have awakenings of differing strengths and longevity. The most common prelude to such things though seem to arise when the practitioner no longer seeks out such experiences.

Take some comfort in a meditative truth that is seldom told.
When comparing awakenings.....
Small awakenings arise from small delusions
Big awakenings arise from big delusions.

.

Were you given instructions by a qualified meditation instructor?