Hey this is Ish,
And today I'll be talking to you about how meditation brings you inner strength and confidence.
So I'll describe now how this process happens over time.
So when you're new to meditation,
You'll find that your mind isn't quite concentrated just yet,
And you may seek fulfillment externally for things outside yourself.
And especially if you have a lot of attachments,
You'll find that your happiness goes up and down just based on the mercy of external events all around you.
Then when you begin to sit for your meditation practice,
You notice that you start to feel more calm,
More composed,
And more stable within yourself.
Then afterward,
You go out in the world,
Engage with your daily affairs,
And your attention goes outward towards objects.
Then you'll find that you lose that calm and peace.
But then you know that you can always come back to your meditation practice again to experience peace and joy in your life.
So there becomes more of a draw,
And you develop and deepen your meditation practice.
As you continue to practice meditation,
You'll find that these qualities of neutrality or non-reactivity become more of a baseline,
And you become less pulled by events all around you,
Because you tend to be drawing from a more inner source rather than your attention going outward towards objects.
As you continue to deepen your practice,
You'll find that you also navigate through life smoothly.
So just as a side tangent,
You'll find that as a byproduct of your meditation practice,
It's actually nice to notice that you become more efficient in whatever you do,
And you become more influential.
And this is because there comes an increased power that comes from concentration practices.
You also display more positive emotions,
Such as gratitude,
Contentment,
Joy,
And cheerfulness.
And this also influences favorable outcomes,
Compared to negativity or complaining,
Or what we can call more unconscious behaviors.
And as you also begin to practice generosity and doing good all around you,
This tends to bring back more favorable outcomes.
And on the topic of confidence,
Find that your confidence comes from an inner strength.
And this is a shift from my teachings from a couple of years ago,
When I taught a lot about outward techniques of confidence,
Such as visualizations and posturing.
And find that when you have this inner stability and strength,
These things kind of take care of itself naturally.
So coming back to my point of navigating life more smoothly,
You'll find that when you become more internally still and non-resistant,
Because this is a quality that you develop through meditation practice,
As you relax into layers of tension and you let go more,
You move from a place of non-resistance,
From a calm,
Composed confidence and knowing that you can handle difficulties in life.
And this knowing comes from,
Again,
Non-resistance to life,
A softer approach,
And you become just like water.
And this is something that the Taoists talk about a lot.
It's a very prized substance,
Because you're able to adapt to life's circumstances and situations.
In the classic Taoist text,
The Tao Te Ching,
Sage Lao Tzu says in verse 78,
That nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water.
Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible,
Nothing can surpass it.
You begin to observe practically that as you move from a place of softness through flexibility,
You can navigate life smoothly,
Because you're not being rigid.
And if you are rigid,
You may break,
But here you can bend through life's situations,
You can adapt freely,
And you're not really tense,
You're very loose and relaxed.
And this is why the soft can overcome the hard.
Now,
As the qualities of meditation deepen,
And you let go more and more in your life,
Through renunciation externally,
And also living a more simple life,
And also through meditation as well,
Where you let go more and more of different mental states that rob you of your peace and happiness,
The trying to find happiness from the external world starts to lose its spark or color,
Just because you begin to see the instability of placing your happiness in changing conditions.
And instead,
You're drawing from a more stable inner source more and more.
So you invest more of your attention internally,
Rather than bringing your attention outwards towards objects.
And you start to notice a happiness,
Equanimity,
And stability that never leaves.
And it is from this inner peace and inner strength sourced,
That externals don't affect you as much,
And there starts to become more of a longer lasting baseline effect of peace,
And these other qualities like I just mentioned.
Now,
Of course,
No one is immune to the unpleasant experiences that happen in life,
And there are situations that will definitely affect you.
But you now come from a different place,
Where you experientially know,
Rather than theoretically,
That things will pass,
And you're also not as attached as you were before.
And you're able to process things much easier,
If you have a very strong meditation practice.
So things come in and out a lot easier and more smoothly.
You also have this general feeling of everything will be fine,
And this okayness,
And there is again a peace that never really leaves now.
So this meditation has now become a part of you and doesn't go away.
And this reminds me of a quote from the Tibetan sage Milarepa.
And I've talked about this somewhere else in a different talk.
In this quote,
He says that in the beginning,
Nothing comes.
In the middle,
Nothing stays.
And in the end,
Nothing leaves.
So this again,
We're coming full circle,
Where if you start at the beginning of your meditation practice,
You will find that the peace and calm that you experience on your meditation doesn't really stay long,
And it's very difficult to become concentrated and access some of these qualities.
Yet,
If you continue on your practice and your path,
You'll find that somewhere along the middle,
You'll notice that these qualities,
You can experience them,
And you have access to a lot of great,
Powerful concentration states and peaceful states,
But it doesn't really seem to stay for very long.
So here,
This refers to nothing stays.
But eventually,
There becomes a marked by letting go,
Simplifying,
And something just changes within you,
Where these qualities become more of a baseline.
And here we come to,
In the end,
Nothing leaves.
This is what he's referring to.
And just trust that on your practice,
You will start to gain this inner strength more and more,
The more you meditate and the more you let go.
So thank you for listening.
Be curious to know in the comments,
How meditation has personally changed your life,
And how it's made you stronger as a person.
