When I exercise,
I can monitor my progress by improving my time or my weight or my repetitions.
When I meditate,
How can I monitor my progress?
Should I be monitoring my progress or is this a false analogy?
If I am not progressing in my meditation,
Should I bother to continue with my practice?
When I exercise,
I can monitor my progress by improving my time or my weight or my repetitions.
When I meditate,
How can I monitor my progress?
Should I be monitoring my progress or is this a false analogy?
If I am not progressing in my meditation,
Should I bother to continue with my practice?
So I can answer this two ways.
The first answer could be,
Yes,
It is possible to measure your progress in meditation.
The second is that it's not desirable to actually have the performance-based attitude towards meditation.
How much of your worries and concerns have disappeared?
How much of your anxiety and anxiety have disappeared?
How much of your negative emotions have disappeared?
How much of your mind has become peaceful and stable?
How much of your mind has become proud and confident?
I guess to your first answer,
If you want to measure the progress of meditation,
The metric could be,
How have you lessened the suffering you suffer in everyday life?
How happier have you become?
For example,
Has your anger subsided?
Your frustration,
Your hatred,
Anxiety,
All these negative emotions,
Has your anger subsided?
Have they subsided?
And has your mindset,
Your psychology,
Have they become more positive,
More stable?
So these are the metrics you can use to measure.
However,
The second more fundamental answer is that,
That's not the metrics-based attitude.
It's not the best way to go about meditation.
However,
Meditation is not the pursuit of power,
Of ability,
Or capability.
So it's not quantifiable in terms of size.
And you can't really measure the efficacy in that fashion.
Because you're not pursuing some power.
That's why it's very difficult to measure.
That's why the outlook is that we're just doing it.
Because if you want to measure something when you study,
On an exercise,
It's based on some kind of desire to reach an objective.
But the nature of meditation is to let go of the desire,
The attachment,
And goals.
So that's why it's difficult to measure.
So the only way to kind of evaluate your progress meditation is to evaluate how much less suffering you have to undergo in your everyday life.
So no matter how tasty,
Or expensive,
Or exclusive a dish is,
If it's not good for your health,
Then what good is it?
No matter how good a cigarette is,
Or how pure the drug is,
It's better not to do them.
So the same thing with meditation.
No matter how long you sit,
No matter how much you concentrate,
And you try to develop some kind of power or extra capabilities,
If it doesn't lead to your lessening of your own suffering,
Then it's useless.
