subject: The Number One Mistake That Meditation Beginners Make [print this page] Far too many people give up on meditation soon after they start, not because they didn't enjoy themselves, but because they fell victim to one of the most common misperceptions about what meditation actually is.
What is this insidious misperception? It is the belief that you must achieve complete and utter mental silence while meditating, and that the presence of thoughts means that you are failing.
It's quite common for newcomers to meditation to become ensnared by this erroneous idea. Well guess what? You DON'T have to achieve complete mental silence to be successful at meditation.
This might sound a little opposite to you. After all, isn't the whole point of meditation to "stop thinking"?
Sure enough, complete mental silence is the ultimate goal of meditation, but in the early stages of meditation practice a simple reduction in mental activity is all that is required. Just a thirty percent reduction in mental activity will reward you with a wonderful sense of clarity and calm.
So many meditation beginners feel as though they are failing when they discover that they are unable to silence their minds completely. This can really lead to frustration and disappointment. Some people, after practicing meditation for a few weeks, or even for some months, still find it extremely difficult to stop their mind from wandering off.
Well guess what? This is NORMAL! It does not mean that you are unable to meditate. Your mind is not something that you can just switch off in an instant, and thoughts are a totally natural phenomenon so it's folly to think that you can silence them all right away.
The most important thing to remember during the early stages of your experience with meditation is that meditation is NOT something you can measure in terms of success or failure. Meditation is a journey, and it is something that you accomplish by sitting with the intention of silencing your mind. Your ability to achieve this silence through meditation will certainly improve and deepen over time, but you should never feel as though you are failing just because thoughts arise.
So don't judge yourself harshly if you find your mind wandering as you meditate. Mental wanderings are quite normal, and even the most experienced meditators get lost in a few mental wanderings from time to time...sometimes more than a few.
If you are new to meditation, or if you have been thinking about starting, then remove the phrase "I can't meditate" from your vocabulary. You CAN meditate, you might just have been holding on to a false image of what meditation is supposed to look and feel like. By letting go of this misperception, you will free yourself to relax into the experience of meditation and your journey to inner silence will unfold at a natural pace.
The Number One Mistake That Meditation Beginners Make
