Trying to Go Somewhere?
Ajahn Sumedho says:
“The important thing in meditation is attitude, rather than technique or tradition. The right attitude is most important. Even if you have the best teacher with the best tradition and the best method, if your attitude isn’t right, it won’t work….
“When you are meditating, don’t try to attain, but just open up to your intention for meditating. When you suddenly awaken to the fact that you are trying to get something out of it, that is a moment of enlightenment. With an open mind, you begin to see what is really happening. But if you sit for a year trying to become and attain, you will feel terribly disappointed at the end of it. You will have lost everything because, if you don’t have the right attitude, you will not have the wisdom to learn from failure.
“In our meditation, we learn from both successes and failures. People fail all the time. Mindfulness of the breath is one of the most frustrating meditation practices ever conceived because, if you try to get something out of it, it is not a very giving practice. You have to be patient. You have to learn from your successes and from your failures, until you no longer really care whether your experience is pleasant or unpleasant. Then both conditions can take you to enlightenment, to nibbana.”
–text from The Mind and the Way: Buddhist Reflections on Life
–image from Phantasmagoric Theater Tarot