The only way to fail at meditation is to stop meditating.
As long as you show up, the meditative process happens. It is really simple: sit down on a chair or a cushion, set the timer on your phone for, say, twenty minutes, then pay attention to how your body feels, or how your breath feels.
Notice when you have been distracted, for the two-hundredth time if that is what it takes, and gently come back to the body or the breath. It does not matter.
why do people give up?
Did I mention the benefits of meditation, physical and emotional both, are through the roof? So if the benefits are so great and the practice so simple, why do people give up?
The three complaints I hear most often: it is not what I expected, it is so boring, and I just cannot meditate, I am always thinking.
Welcome to the club. If you have run into any of those three, or a host of other complaints, it means meditation is actually working.
meditation is often not what we expected
Is anything ever what we expected? These expectations can cause needless frustration. There is one remedy for all of the above: let go of ideas about how things should turn out, and turn instead with interest and curiosity to what is actually happening.
whatever happens is just fine
Meditation involves a willingness to see what actually happens, not to chase experiences we have been told we should be having. Whatever happens is just fine.
Bored? Investigate how the concept of boredom presents itself. Cannot stop thinking? No problem. Meditation is not about stopping the mind from thinking. It is about exploring the thinking mind itself.
stay open and receptive to what is
All that is asked of you is to stay open and receptive to your present moment’s experience, whatever that experience happens to be.
Often, when meditation does not seem to be going our way, we dig in and struggle. We tense up. Or, when bored, we drift off into fantasy. When you notice this happening, get curious about it instead.
meditation asks us to be patient with ourselves
A kind of compassion melts our resistance to the present moment. It is a compassion that lets us be open to each moment as it unfolds, without judgment, trusting the process to unfold as it will.
a sense of humor really helps
This kind of patience is easygoing. There is room here for humor and playfulness. It is not a grin-and-bear-it kind of patience. As Pema Chödrön says about patience in meditation practice:
It’s a kind of loving-kindness–for your own imperfections, for your own limitations, for not living up to your own high ideals. Just being patient with the fact that you’re human and that you make mistakes. That’s more important than getting it right. There’s a slogan someone once came up with that I like: “Lower your standards and relax as it is.”
Or as the sixteenth-century Bishop of Geneva, Francis de Sales, advised:
Most importantly, don’t lose heart, be patient, wait, do all you can to develop a spirit of compassion.
The contemporary Burmese meditation teacher U Tejaniya Sayadaw has a good deal to say about how to skillfully approach our practice:
Meditating is watching and waiting patiently with awareness and understanding. Meditation is NOT trying to experience something you have read or heard about. Just pay attention to the present moment. Don’t get lost in thoughts about the past or the future. Don’t try to create anything, and don’t reject what is happening. Just be aware.
Please keep going.