Why Meditate?
I often see people who embark on meditation with expectations that are influenced
by their previous experiences with yoga. Yoga practice can often stimulate the
endorphins producing a state of heightened bliss.
Often these classes are structured to conclude with 5 minutes of meditation, so
newcomers to meditation are led to believe by their own experience that meditation
should always produce some kind of lovely blissful state.
Hence students come to meditation with expectations that often cannot be met.
Let me introduce to you a different expectation to try out as you
approach meditation, and that is, meditation is a tool for knowing.
If bliss happens, great, however don’t expect it. Instead, view bliss as a beautiful room in which you are going to write your great novel.
If you’re going to try your hand at anything, it’s wonderful to have beautiful supporting
circumstances in which to do it. However it’s not absolutely necessary and it shouldn’t
become a distraction from the real work that you need to do.
And the real work is to know, with love and compassion.
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