No Expectations
Photo by Andres F. Uran on Unsplash
I am often asked what results I achieve in meditation. Not just the general benefits of it in my life, but when I actually sit down to meditate, what is it that I experience? Inquiring Western result-oriented minds want to know. They want to know because they want to understand what to expect in their own meditation. They want to make sure that they are “doing it right” by comparing their experiences to those of others.
This is an expected line of inquiry in our world, where we approach everything with a result in mind. But with meditation, it actually defeats the purpose. For one thing, meditation is subjective and experiential. No one can tell you what you will experience in meditation. For 100 people there will be 100 individual experiences, so yours will be unique to you. Indeed, if you try to look for someone else’s experience in your meditation, it may actually make it harder for you to be present for your own journey. You may either not notice or discount your own discoveries while comparing them to others’. Second, meditation is not a project like other projects are. There is no goal. There is no “right” way to meditate, and there is no single result.
Some writers describe their meditation journeys complete with an Experience. One person describes seeing a bright blue light. Another has a powerful vision. Some people have an out-of-body experience. So I am asked: do I see a bright blue light? Do I see myself flying? What happens??
For the record, I do not see a bright blue light, although colors or lights do come into my visual field sometimes. I have never had an out-of-body experience and I don’t fly away from the physical world, like Parahamansa Yogananda described in his book, “Autobiography of a Yogi”. Instead, what happens for me is that I get really quiet inside. In that stillness, I find the feeling of perfect wellness, of joy. No matter what is happening externally - and believe me, there’s been some Stuff! - I know I am (going to be) OK when I meditate. Sometimes I get the quiet voice of intuition coming through, a knowing, that clearly shows me a next step I need to take. Just as often, nothing much happens at all.
I too used to wait for an Experience, an Epiphany. Not having one, I wondered if I was doing something wrong. But I have long since let go of a desire for something to happen, and it’s liberated me greatly in my practice. I highly recommend letting go of that expectation.
Pema Chödrön instructs those on the meditation path to let go of all expectations in the Buddhist principle of threefold purity. Let go of expectation for yourself in your meditation. Let go of expectation of what your meditation session will be like. And let go of expectation of any results in meditation. The idea is to come to your meditation just as you are, no preparation or “betterment” required. Begin right now. Simply sit. Breathe. Observe. That’s it. The mind will wander. That’s OK. You will of course have expectations. You will tell yourself stories, like “Look at me, I’m meditating!” Then you are going to want to judge all these thoughts. Just observe all of that. “Yep, there goes the mind! and here is the judgment!”, you say to yourself with a humorous metaphorical pat on the back. That is the practice.
Of course, attaining this kind of an expectation-free approach is the work of a lifetime. Observing your mind’s conditioning and expectations is like peeling an onion. You recognize your expectations and maybe let go just enough to be able to get still for a moment. Underneath, you will find another layer, then another and another. The beauty of meditation is that you get to become the observer of this within yourself. There is no end goal. There are just layers of experience each time you sit. They are quiet and subtle, but they are there. Many teachers encourage us not to do meditation, just to let it occur.
So next time you come to meditation, remember, no expectations. Come to each session just as you are. Don’t wait for anything to happen, instead enjoy the experience of nothing at all. See what happens within that. Then come to each day of your life just as you are. Observe. That is the practice.
Join me for free livestream meditation every week. And I highly recommend the full Pema Chödrön teaching on expectations: Dissolve Your Fixation on Yourself.