The essence of meditation is effortlessness. Meditation is a natural state of mind, so why do we sometimes struggle with meditation and find it difficult?
There are 3 main obstacles to ease in meditation.
The first is trying to do meditation “right”. The fear that we are doing something wrong can make us tense as we try too hard to “do it right”. There are no mistakes in meditation. There are no wrong experiences. Everything in meditation is part of the process. Think of meditation as a journey of discovery — self-discovery — learning about how our minds work, how feelings come and go, how to flow easily with ourselves and life. It’s not about following a set of rules or instructions, it’s about learning from our own unique experience.
The second obstacle is resisting our experiences in meditation. We may try to resist thoughts, with the mistaken idea that meditation means not having thoughts, or having a quiet mind. Thoughts are a part of meditation. What we learn is to allow them to come and go freely, not pushing them out and not getting involved in the meaning of thoughts. What we discover is a quietness and stillness in the mind even when thoughts are present.
We may also try to resist certain kinds of thoughts, or feelings, or sensations in the body. What we learn in meditation is to allow everything that comes up without resistance, or letting go of the resistance when we notice it. Everything experience is an expression of life energy expressing as thoughts, feelings and sensations. We don’t need to know why they are there. We learn to trust how life naturally expresses through us. Allowed to flow without resistance, thoughts, feelings and sensations come and go. Life is constant change — nothing lasts forever, even the painful feelings we tend to push out.
Finally, we might try to make ourselves be or feel a particular way. We may think that meditation is about being peaceful, and feel bad if we don’t feel at peace. We may try to manipulate our feelings somehow — trying to make ourselves calm and peaceful — but calm and peace come from simply being with “what is”. When we notice that we are trying to make ourselves feel differently, we can let that go, and in that letting go, peace is naturally found.
Part 2 of the Embrace Effortlessness & Ease meditation is a longer version of last month’s meditation. This will allow you to go deeper into the experience of effortlessness. Practicing this regularly will allow the principles of effortlessness to become clearer and help you form a habit of letting go of effort when it comes up.