Recently I posted Bliss Not Guaranteed and this week I came across an ancient post(from 2008 .. oh my!) which I wrote in response to a student who had asked why her hard effort was going unrewarded.
Kind of speaks to the same thing .. striving towards imaginary goals
In this case the student asked why with all the reading and the practice she was doing with her meditation (her new passion) she still felt she wasn’t achieving what she wanted …
In this case the student asked why with all the reading and the practice she was doing with her meditation (her new passion) she still felt she wasn’t achieving what she wanted …
"I feel like I'm maybe trying too hard to be effective"
While we do speak of the importance of practice (like any new skill everything requires practice) it is really a practice of allocating the time and getting to our seat ... once you have taken the necesary action to be there, once you are ready and committed, then meditation is really a practice that requires non-action (as the Taoist would say).
If our energy is applied too vigorously it can just as easily lead us to restlessness and disappointment ... if it is applied too weakly it can lead us to lethargy and sluggishness. So while our intentions may be noble sometimes our meditation can become over-burdened by our desire for it to be special, or match the experiences we hear from others!
Too much effort can also overwhelm the wonderful experience we are actually having ... if were we paying attention!
We should try to be aware if there is too much "striving" .. are we trying too hard, being overly eager or grasping? then we may not truly be present to just what ‘is’ .. we may still be imprisoned in our expectations and desires.
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