How do you know if you meditated successfully,
If you had a good session,
If you even did it right?
These are questions that I've long pondered because unlike most other activities,
There's no real source of external gratification or acknowledgement or an external source of information that can tell you that,
Like,
Yeah,
Here's some feedback,
You did it right or wrong.
It's all internal.
And beyond that,
The goal or the idea of having a goal of meditation sort of doesn't quite make sense.
You might be meditating for calm or for clarity or to process the past or something like that.
But each session,
Each session is just something you sit and do.
And a lot of people will go,
They get up off the mat,
They go,
That was a great session.
But by what measure are they judging that success?
The feeling,
How they feel as they stand up?
Well,
That feeling itself is just another thing that's arising in consciousness.
If your practice is to mindfully observe the breath,
Your mind wanted to bring it back,
Your mind wanted to bring it back,
And a thought arises that's good or bad,
Does the nature of that thought impact if the meditation session was a success or not?
That thought could be positive or negative.
It could be harrowing.
It could be beautiful.
But it's still just a thought that's arising in consciousness.
So the nature of that thought is irrelevant to whether or not the meditation session was good or not.
Right?
And if the last thought that you get up on,
You know,
When you stand up from the mat is a positive one,
That sort of doesn't quite have a bearing upon the overall practice.
Now,
True,
You might be feeling,
Throughout the practice,
You might be feeling agitated or angry or angsty or some sort of thing that's making you not be able to sit.
Okay?
But that doesn't mean that the meditation session was bad,
Provided you did sit,
Provided you did the practice.
Everything else is irrelevant because it might just be that your mind is in that state and you're just checking into it.
The meditation isn't bad.
Your mind state is just a not pleasant mind state.
We take away the judgments from it.
You're just observing what is happening.
And what is happening is agitation.
That doesn't feel great,
But it doesn't detract from the goodness,
Quote unquote,
Of the meditation session.
No,
I think a better way to look at all of this is to judge it and go,
Okay,
I did the meditation session.
Therefore it was good.
It doesn't matter the contents of the consciousness.
Doesn't matter even how you felt about it.
The fact that you did it means that it was a good session.
Does that sort of make sense?
The fact that you did the session makes it good.
Over time,
If you have that approach,
It doesn't matter what happens during the meditation session,
Provided you do it.
If you maintain that approach,
Then you'll be more likely to meditate moving forward and you will not be left feeling bad about a quote unquote bad sessions.
Because the only bad session is the session you didn't do.
I'm going to say that again.
The only bad session,
The only session that you should feel a negative emotion about is the one that you didn't get to do.
But I'm not even suggesting you should even feel that negative emotion.
You should just observe what arises.
If you missed a session,
Feelings of self-recrimination might arise.
But rather than dwelling on that,
Observe those feelings of self-recrimination.
By what measure does it matter if you did it or not?
What do these feelings feel like?
How are they impacting or coloring consciousness?
Even if you do miss the session,
You can still use the feelings that missing the session brings up in you as a meditation.
It's getting a little bit advanced or meta,
But this is the depth of the practice that you can attain.
Do your best to do a session every day,
But if you miss the session,
Observe the emotions that arise.
Feel what those feel like.
See how it colors consciousness and explore it.
Use those feelings as the object of a mini meditation.
Right?
Have a great day.
