What Goes Wrong?

Concentration

Constantly monitor your practice with the following guidelines.

  • To meditate is NEITHER to doze nor idle.
  • To meditate is NOT to ruminate about the past, worry about the future, escape from reality, or even think up plans for the future.
  • To meditate is NOT to anticipate the surfacing of any psychic powers or paranormal abilities.
  • To meditate IS to investigate into your nature of mind or consciousness. In spite of the restless mind, which often is filled with verbal expressions (e.g. self-talks) and non-verbal expressions (e.g. feelings or emotions), practitioners are to investigate into the mind by OBSERVING and not getting carried away with the arising thoughts, feelings, and so forth.
  • Be TIME-WISE. Every second, every moment counts toward your progress in practice. Sleep when you sleep. Eat when you eat. Meditate while you meditate.
  • If you feel entertained with the thoughts or feelings that arise during meditation, be MINDFUL.

Consistency in practice

When you feel like quitting...

  • The purpose of visualization is to tame and train the restless mind. Compared to the will, intellectual judgments are of little use in meditation practice. Despite whatever arising thoughts or feelings that bother you, before or during meditation, you can CHOOSE to either succumb to them and abandon meditation practice or ignore them and continue your practice.
  • By getting carried away in mood swings, you are unlikely to be able to observe them impartially, let alone gain insights into the nature of your mind. If you don't start your practice now to gain a better understanding of your self, when will you?
    • To reach an intermediate level, it should take around 10,000 hours of meditation practice. This of course varies across individuals.
    • Deducting sleeping hours, personal hygiene, work, leisure, and so on, how many hours do you have left in the remaining estimated life span to answer your most personal questions:
      • Who was I?
      • Where do I come from?
      • Who am I?
      • Why am I here?
      • Where do I go after death?
      • What will I be?
    • How likely will the future you hold the same mind as the current you?

Payoff comes from the right consistent efforts

"I just don't get it... I am not a good meditator!"
"I don't feel any improvement in self at all. Maybe some people are born good with meditation and some are not. I am just not the one for this."

Aha, if you catch yourself uttering these, you are likely to hold an "entity theory" (Dweck, 1999) of self-ability; that is, learning is a thing that you either get or miss it. Do you know that there are some people who are born less advantaged in terms of ability to learn yet their persistence finally brings them to catch up with and even outperform others? These people who are patient in learning are known to hold an "incremental theory" (Dweck, 1999) of self-ability.

So, when you have those negative self-talks in your head and begin to lose faith in yourself, ask yourself the following:

If I ever consider meditation as pointless... With regards to karma to bring forth an effect, one must plant the right cause...
  • Have I planted the right causes for effective results? What have I done wrong? What can I do to improve my situation?
    • I remember having thought over the time when my attention was so focused on a task, what were my notes on that?
    • I recall having written about the time when my mind was tranquilly receptive to the surroundings, what did I write exactly?
  • Have I been patient enough to sustain at least three months of practice?
    (The first step in every endeavor is the most difficult. When you exert the will to persist, this personal agency not only bring you the corresponding fruits but also spill over to other areas of your life in general. Dare to challenge yourself again?)
  • When all else fails, maybe I should post a thread in the discussion forum.