To meditate is to struggle

The practice of meditation is the practice of struggle. Or put another way, meditation is the practice of fighting resistance.

An erroneous belief is that to mediate correctly one must be able to sit for long stretches of time with an empty mind, unaffected by distraction. If you could silence your mind completely, you probably wouldn’t need to meditate.

To meditate is to get distracted, and then to bring our mind back under control. To meditate is to see how long it takes our mind to go off on its own. And then to try to get the mind back in focus.

Most people who complain about meditation, really complain about their inability to sit still and empty their minds.

This is the same as going to the gym for the first time and coming to the conclusion that you can’t lift weights because your are not strong enough. Any good trainer would tell you to start small, and not be discouraged. Going to the gym, and struggling to lift weights, is not only how you get better at lifting, it is in itself the act of weightlifting. It is pushing against the resistance that makes us stronger and builds our muscles. You are a weightlifter from day one.

Just the same, meditation is the training of our minds. It is the pulling attention back when we are distracted the core exercise. The fact that we struggle to meditate doesn’t mean we are failing. It means we are working out control over our minds.

The fact that we struggle to meditate is proof that we are doing it right.

To meditate is to struggle.