January 24, 2009
Meditation will not help you
Meditation will not help you.
It won't make you more calm and peaceful. It won't eliminate stress. It won't cure you of diseases. It won't make you more spiritually advanced. It won't make you better at your job or your sport or your hobby. It won't give you magical powers. It won't help you make more money. And it definitely won't make you enlightened
There, I said it. Now, how you feelin'?
If you've been meditating for years, trust me I'm already prepared for your response. I'm ready to hear you tell me how meditation instruction changed your life, got rid of your stubborn itch, and gave you the ability to pull locomotive with your teeth.
And if you haven't meditated before, you're probably having one of two reactions. Either some agitation, because you were ready to go to some meditation classes, expecting to get any or all of those benefits, which would improve your life… and besides, you've heard from experts, both scientists and famous meditators, that meditation is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and who is this Sashen guy to disagree with them, anyway?
Or, maybe you feel tremendous relief when you saw that meditation might not be helpful and called your spiritual travel agent to cancel your meditation retreat vacation. You may have recognized that meditation was really just adding another thing to your already overfull to-do list, and getting yourself another self-improvement project might cause more stress than it would eliminate.
Okay, let me fess up. I don't actually believe what I wrote in the first paragraph, but I also don't believe in the opposite. Where does that leave me? I don't believe all the hype about meditation.
Now this is an odd thing to hear from a guy who teaches meditation, and something called Advanced Meditation, at that. But I'd like to be clear, and help you have the opportunity to explore with some clarity rather than a bunch of concepts that could interfere with your practice.
The simplest thing I can say is this: if you've never meditated before, you have no idea what meditation can or will do for you.
You can listen to other people's experiences, you can read books, you can believe what some meditation teacher tells you, you can imagine what the future will be like after you're able to sit peacefully in a cross-legged position, floating 6 inches above your meditation cushion. But the reality is you have no way of predicting the future. You just don't know.
And this is really good news, because meditation is an experiment. An inner, personal experiment. And like all experiments, you can only get real authentic results if you take simple reproducible steps and look honestly at the results. If you walk in with a bunch of expectations or hopes or predictions, just like in an actual science experiment, this could give you bad or no results. Or you might get wonderful results that you misinterpret and discount because of your pre-existing concepts.
Now for those of you who have meditated before, you've also got be honest. There is really no way to honestly say what the effects of meditation have been in your life. And that's true simply because you don't have an identical twin living in an identical parallel universe who's done everything that you've done except for meditate. As scientists would say, "you don't have a control to compare to."
I can see why it's easy for people to say that some of the qualities they think I have came about as a result of my meditation practice. But when I look carefully, I don't see it that way. For all I know, I just happen to be the kind of guy whose life would end up this exact same way even if, instead of meditating, I engaged in a rigorous practice of video games and pinball and used bubble gum collecting. May be simple maturity would have given me the kind of insights or perspective that many might claim come from an investigation of the mind.
But I think this is good news too, because to cling to the position that meditation is the cause of many — or even any — of the good things in my life sets up expectations for my practice and my life that can interfere with both. Let me give you an example.
I've seen people get angry or depressed because life situations prevented them from engaging in their 20 minute twice-a-day meditation practice. Maybe just maybe, if they didn't believe they needed meditation in order to deal with their stressful situation — and didn't therefore find himself fighting with the reality that didn't allow them that time – they would've had more spaciousness and openness and creativity and acceptance of life. And the irony of course is: Isn't that why they were practicing meditation to begin with?
Let me know how your meditative experiment goes.
Comments on Meditation will not help you »
Hello.
I had meditated with a woman in Salt Lake City about 3 years ago who had learned from Tibetan masters (Rimpoche and others…she learned in Holland where she was born).
Anyway, I have moved to rural Colorado outside of Aspen, and would like to learn the meditation techniques so that I can lead groups.
As you say, I am not at all clear about the benefits I received from meditation, except that I know it shook up my world, and that the study of compassion, and other aspects of Buddhist thought have a powerful grip on me.
Do you have suggestions, tools, anything that can move me in the direction I would like to go without having to travel? I am currently finishing a masters in mental health counseling and completing my internship (unpaid) and thesis. I would like to incorporate what I have learned from this woman (more consciously) into my practice.
I neither have time or money to travel right now (I also am in full time care of my aging parents which limits my movements).
Any tips on what to do, where to go?
Thanks,
Dean Pappas
Hi Dean,
My suggestion is a home-study meditation course and, not surprisingly, I recommend The Instant Advanced Meditation Course — http://www.advancedmeditation.com
The "I AM course" techniques are surprisingly simple, fast and effective. I know a number of people who have the course who teach the techniques and the reports they come back with are stunning — students who never had much luck with meditating before having extremely powerful experiences in just a few minutes, and students who *have* meditation experience taking their practice to much deeper levels very easily.
Happy to chat about it more if you like… my phone number is all over the http://www.AdvancedMeditation.com site
Hi Steven,
I am not sure if Meditation 'helped me' in some way. But what it did (or better said the so called Mystical Experiences), was not what i expected. You see, i was one these people that believed in an individual soul, an ominous higher self that has to be reached, reincarnation and stuff like that. And i thought that meditation would somehow fortify and strengthen my believe in this things. But what happened was quite the opposite: I got serious trouble to believe in this stuff (or at least in the way they are commonly understood) again. Instead, the way i see and interpret things became in some way more 'naturalistic'. What i found out is, that i can wonder and be curious about things without believing and imagining strange things.
And i think, the way i see myself, the others, and the world changed too. (Although I am not able to point exactly out in which way). I think, meditation made an Atheist (sort of…) out of me.
It's funny, Andi, how 2 people can have the same experience (to the extent that we can determine that they did) and come to two completely different interpretations of it.
Some will go to the naturalistic side, like you. Others will head to the spirit/soul/etc. side.
Now, here's the question *I* find interesting:
Was it the PROCESS of meditating that led to this change for you… or was it a recognition that happened as a side-effect of meditating?
(And, btw, I'm not expecting you to answer. This is a rhetorical thing.)
I know that can sound like the same thing, but here's the distinction: If it was the side-effect, then it's possible we can find a faster, more reliable way to impart the "education" component of that side-effect. That's been the thrust of my work for the last 9 years.
The metaphor I like to use is, just because we're traveling from New York to San Francisco, doesn't mean we can't start at the Golden Gate Bridge
Hi Steven,
I am not sure what do you mean by recognition. But what I mean is a kind of recognition or acceptance of obvious facts. I mean things like that the universe is one, that anything just happens, that concepts and thoughts about the reality are not THE reality etc. are intellectually pretty easy to get. But normally theres some kind of barrier to really 'get it'. In my humble opinion there a two ways to overcome the 'barrier': One is to put the mind in the right mood, so its easier to accept 'the facts', the second one is to make 'the obvious' too obvious so it becomes hard for the mind to cheat around. How this is accomplished in detail is not really important, i think
Btw great blog. i would be interested in your thoughts about meditation theory (or whats the 'point' in meditation). If you care
Hi again, Andi.
Glad you're enjoying the blog. I am too
What I meant by "recognition" is similar to what you described. Not the specifics, just the phenomenon of noticing. The real point I was making, or the question I was investigating was this one:
Is meditation the PRIMARY cause of change, or does meditation set the conditions for some other cause? (If meditation is a cause at all.)
Regarding my thoughts about meditation theory, I'm not sure I can posit one. Let me elaborate
First, as you've gathered, this blog is more about investigating ideas that people have about meditation than about offering a theory. I don't feel the need to replace existing theories with "better" ones. I mean, if the current bucket doesn't hold water, no need to build a better — but still flawed — bucket.
Second, it's hard to lay down a coherent theory when the evidence one would need to do so is so spotty and error-filled. There aren't enough good data points to connect the dots into something pretty. Explaining why I think the data is flawed is a whole other conversation.
But, here's one confounding factor in the date: For some reason people think that everyone has the same natural propensity for meditation. If anyone meditates, they'll get results. But this is a silly proposition to hold when we see that in EVERY other aspect of our life, intrinsic factors (let's call them genetic) influence our abilities, tendencies and skills.
So, if one person meditates and develops the ability to squirt water out of his nose at supersonic speed… well, maybe he started the journey with a natural fire hose (nose?) gift and meditation wasn't as causal as we'd like to believe.
Also, there's very little agreement about what the results of meditation should be, and even less about how one should be able to verify any attainments. I'm dumbfounded when some guy in robes with a funny name has said, "Oh, no, I'm not enlightened," and then his students say, "See, the fact that he won't say he's enlightened PROVES that he is!" Ummm… that's logically flawed. And the idea that someone who's not "at the same level" can't investigate another is also utter nonsense.
Here's an example of what makes the investigation difficult. Ramesh Balsekar, in one of his books, says (and I'm paraphrasing), "How can you know if you're not enlightened? There are no signs of enlightenment. Nothing to demonstrate that you've reached enlightenment." So far, so good. In fact, Ramesh has been saying this in varying ways for decades.
But then, in the very next sentence in his book, he said, "When it happened for me, I noticed…"
WAIT A MINUTE! You just said there are no signs! If there are no signs, then how can you claim a date and time for which this impossible-to-identify thing "happened for you"?
One doesn't need to be "at Ramesh's level" (whatever that means) to see the logical problem in that statement and shine a light on it. I mean, it's a pretty straightforward and easy-to-see contradiction… unless you're attached to an opinion about Ramesh that makes critical thinking go out the window.
BTW, I'm not saying anything, pro or con, about Ramesh, just the confounding nature of statements/attainments/perceptions, etc.
Okay, that's a bit of a tangent. So let me sign off for now with this:
When I cared about the "point" of meditation, I was constantly looking over my shoulder, or toward the horizon, to see if I could measure progress to that point. It made meditation something that was always — albeit sometimes VERY subtly — about fixing or improving myself in some way. And living this continual self-improvement project (like living in a house that's being remodeled) was a profoundly (and, again, often subtly) unpleasant state.
Only when I saw that the "point" I had believed in was ill-supported by the evidence (and even by scripture, IMO), and noticed that any interest in a "point" lead to various degrees of unhappiness, and when I found myself no longer interested in or concerned about a "point"… only then did I discover the contentment I thought would come from meditation… and new ways of meditating that produced more reliable and consistent effects, which were also more satisfying/interesting than any of my previous meditative experiences.
Looking forward to the continued conversation and inquiry.
-S
I Really Love Reading Your Blog. Excellent. Keep up the great work!