The story goes that a son of one of Joseph Goldstein’s friends attended a retreat soon after Insight Meditation Society opened in Barre, Massachusetts. The father called Joseph to see how his son was doing, and Joseph said he was doing fine. On a second call, toward the end of the retreat, Joseph repeated that answer and his friend asked, “How do you know?” Joseph answered, “Because he’s still here.”
The moral of this story is that whatever happens when we meditate, the important thing is to keep meditating. It’s common to feel that a session of meditation wasn’t “right,” either because we were doing it wrong or there were distractions around us or inside our heads. Judging our practice this way is the fifth of the Five Hindrances, doubt. Like desire, aversion, restlessness or low energy, doubt can seriously interfere with our practice and its benefits.
There are ways to deal with all of the Hindrances. We can use antidotes to get rid of them or focus attention on them to learn more about our minds. Which approach we take depends on the kind of practice we’re doing.
After many years of teaching meditation, it seems to me that most people fall into a pattern fairly early: watching the breathing, then drifting into one of the hindrances, recognizing they’ve drifted and returning to the breath. And repeat. This routine can provide a period of time with lowered stress, and occasionally a spontaneous insight into how the mind works. Some practitioners become so entrenched in this pattern, though, that they can’t imagine doing anything different.
There are countless other ways to meditate. Each technique has its own challenges and benefits. The routine I just described is basically how I usually guide meditation sessions in sitting groups. Sometimes I add instructions for other practices, like investigating whatever pulled attention off the breath, generally some form of a hindrance.
People often tell me this sounds like “thinking,” which they believe they’re not supposed to do while meditating. It isn’t, though, because this investigation just involves holding attention on the physical feelings that arise when we’re stuck in desire, dislike, restlessness, lethargy, or doubt. Wordlessly we’re just noticing what arises in our awareness and how it makes our bodies feel.
Meditation develops both serenity and wisdom in our lives. Wisdom comes from investigating the habits of our minds and how those tendencies cause us dukkha. The insights we gain lead to serenity. So does the time we spend in concentration. This is when the mind stays on the breathing, our attention resting where we’ve focused it. This state is usually fleeting in the occasional sitting, but still precious. My Zen teachers often say just one moment of it makes the whole sitting successful. When we have longer blocks of time to practice concentrating, those moments can stretch out with increasing ease and pleasure.
Another basic meditation practice is to focus on lovingkindness rather than the breath. This can be done by repeating phrases that express goodwill and may evoke those feelings in the meditator. Sometimes the feelings are strong enough and last long enough to become the focus of attention. Other techniques focus on a variety of objects. Some practices hold the attention wide open, unguarded, to whatever arises in the awareness.
With or without our deciding to do so, a meditation session can include any mixture of techniques. Setting an intention can help us choose a path through so many possible practices, and their hindrances. The mind can defy our intentions, though. That’s why it’s good to remember that when our mind is like a grasshopper jumping here and there no matter how we try to control it, we’re just having a day with “grasshopper mind.”
Setting an intention and making a reasonable effort is important when we meditate, but the most important thing in our practice is to do it. Set an amount of time to sit, and stay there till that time is up. That’s really what it takes to have a “fine” session. That and meditating again the next day.