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An Invaluable Lesson I Learned That Transformed My Meditation Practice
Anybody who’s meditated for any length of time knows this: some sessions are good and some are pulling-teeth awful. The good ones connect us to our home base, make us feel centered and are marked by a physical feeling of inner calmness. The bad ones are full of uncontrollable, racing thoughts and anxious feelings that make us feel worse than if we hadn’t meditated at all. Many meditators, especially those in the early stages of their practice, give it up if these “bad” sessions continue for too long. The fundamental mistake these people make lies in what they believe to be the purpose of meditation. Hint: That purpose is not, as most people believe, to feel divinely serene and peaceful inside, an invaluable lesson I learned a few years ago from Western meditation pioneer Joseph Goldstein.
A little background. Along with Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg, Goldstein helped bring meditation to America in the 1970s. I had been meditating regularly for five years when I took Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course in 2017. One of our course readings was a short chapter in Goldstein’s book Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom. The chapter eloquently describes what the purpose of meditation is and isn’t.
