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Discouragement in Meditation
Jeffrey
Veteran
in Meditation
This speaks to the phenomenon of discouragement.
Discouragement
Lama Shenpen Hookham
Summary: Is feeling discouraged a normal part of the practice? What causes it and how can one get back to the sense of heart and space?
A student writes:
"I have been finding the course very inspiring and felt that it really was 'working' for me, but now feel a bit 'dull'/uninspired.
I still feel a commitment to the course and practice and am still doing my 15 minutes a day of meditation - in fact I couldn't imagine not doing that now. I just wondered if it was normal to experience this sort of thing and if you would have any advice about it?"
Lama Shenpen:
It is very normal. What happens is after some good experience in meditation you start to expect it to go on and so instead of coming to it fresh you come with an expectation. That attitude kills the spontaneity of your experience and makes it heavy and unworkable.
It takes a while to notice this process and learn how to not make it worse by trying too hard or, on the other side, reacting against trying at all and wanting to give up – or indeed giving up.
It’s easier to handle once you realise it is all part of the process. You just turn towards that experience in just the same open way that you turn towards all experience – no problem. Just keep going. No need to grit the teeth and keep going – just lighten up and keep going!
Student:
"I think partly what it is, is that I feel less 'connected' to the heart-sense/space of awareness feelings in daily life. Are there things I could try to do to help with this?"
Lama Shenpen:
Well, there are lots of suggestions all through the course material really. Gradually you find things that really help you, personally, to connect back quickly and then it’s a matter of training yourself to remember. The biggest problem is forgetting.
That is why we train in mindfulness – just simply remembering! It’s amazing how much we forget. We forget most of the time. We are training ourselves to remember more ... and just to remember a bit more already makes a huge difference. So that’s good news, isn’t it?
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