From Mindful Birthing by Nancy Bardacke
…and There’s No Such Thing as a “Bad” Meditation Either
When you have a pleasurable meditation experience, take care not to fall into the trap of becoming attached to the experience, thinking that it was a “good” meditation or that you are finally “doing it right” and will therefore strive to have the same experience again. In reality, there is no such thing as a good meditation. A meditation in which you were quite focused, when you experienced a degree of stillness and inner peace, is no better than a meditation in which the mind is quite agitated or the body is very uncomfortable. While you may certainly prefer a peaceful meditation, that is just a preference for ease over discomfort, which is certainly understandable. But if you try to make the pleasurable happen each time you practice, thinking that you are not doing it right if it doesn’t turn out that way, then you are setting yourself up to suffer—and to miss the opportunity to grow in inner strength, wisdom, and compassion, which is the point of our meditation practice.
Each time we practice, our meditation experience will be different because we are different. What we are learning is the letting go of the dualistic mind, the mind that separates the world into like and not like, into good and bad, and to step instead into conditional reality, the reality of how things are in any particular moment, whether in relation to a particular meditation or to any other aspect of life.
To learn more about mindful family living, Nancy Bardacke and her book, Mindful Birthing: Training the Mind, Body, and Heart for Childbirth and Beyond, visit mindfulbirthing.com.