What is the Objective of Meditation?
A Yogi’s Guide to the Goal of Meditation
This article about the purpose of meditation is a part of the Yoga Practice section of our Yogi’s Guide to Yoga.
The Objective of Meditation: A Yogi’s Guide
Table of Contents
The Objective of Meditation
What the Goal of Meditation is Not
The goal of meditation is not to produce a sense of a calm or eliminate your anxiety.
The goal of meditation is not to perfect your mental health, eliminate your trauma, or “purify” your emotional life of all “bad” feelings, including guilt/shame/fear, etc..
The goal of meditation is not to “manifest” whatever material thing—financial freedom, fame, love, enlightenment, etc.—you think will add more weight or sufficiency to your self/image/life and impervious to future sources of discomfort, and/or too significant to be ignored.
The goal of meditation is not to transport yourself to some other realm or place outside of experience where you transcend (and thus are no longer subject to) the vicissitudes and demands of inner and outer life.
And the goal of meditation is not any kind of “self-mastery”. (In fact, the pursuit of something like “self-mastery” often reinforces the very problem that meditation is intended to subvert.)
Meditation is a tool of self-awareness that allows us to become aware of the ways in which our attention is habitually and automatically pre-occupied; we become aware of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours before being consumed by them. Meditation helps us cultivate the capacity to remain with our unwanted thoughts and painful emotions so that our lives aren’t fully determined by (avoiding) them.
What Meditation Is:
An Introduction to the Objective of Meditation
What is the goal of meditation? The goal in meditation is to become directly aware of how your attention is habitually and automatically pre-occupied, and to notice the role that this pre-occupation plays in determining who/what you think you are. Most basically, the goal in meditation is the experience of freedom from these habitual ways of being absorbed by inner/outer life.
Freedom from these habitual ways of being absorbed by inner/outer life does not entail no longer be subject to inner/outer life; your awareness is irrevocably determined by the structural elements of human life—elements that do not conform to your will, such as the capacities/vulnerabilities of embodiment, social, historical, cultural, linguistic factors, etc.—and include the very conditions that have motivated you to want to improve your life (and also the very conditions that have allowed you to read and comprehend this article).
You did not determine these conditions; these conditions preceded “you”. These conditions are not subject to your will, but rather have given you your will. And because you could never become free of these basic structural elements of experience, “freedom” is not no longer being determined by these elements. Rather, you realize your freedom in becoming aware of the way(s) in which your awareness is always already determined. Or, stated differently, freedom is self-awareness.
We typically think of “self-awareness” in the context of attempting to learn our own personal, idiosyncratic ways of reproducing destructive habits. We typically seek “self-awareness” when we’re attempting to address some difficulty in our life, to reveal our personal unconscious habits that prevent us from attaining what we desire. Indeed, becoming aware of how your attention is habitually and automatically pre-occupied with the world will reveal your addictive ways of interpreting your experience that are producing and re-producing your existing habits of engagement with your inner/outer life (e.g., with things, people, thoughts/feelings, yourself, etc.). But the purpose of meditation is something different. The purpose of meditation is not to identify any specific (destructive) pre-occupation, but is rather to notice the very impulse that characterizes pre-occupation itself: the impulse to self-transcend, to “reach out” (or, desire)—in all of its manifestations, be they in craving or avoidance, or even the faint/fleeting micro-movements of something like the “starting up” or momentum of a (or the habitual) self that arises even in deep stillness. In meditation, we develop the capacity to notice the ways that our attention is in the grip of (or possessed by) various incarnations of the momentum of pre-personal habit.
Specifically, in meditation we are able to see how our everyday interpretation of the world is a kind of desire-based interpretation, one that is defining reality (i.e., things, people, places, situations, etc.) in terms of our own needs—a fact that is obvious when we consider that we’re only ever really paying attention to what’s relevant to/for ourselves. This basic desire is another non-optional element of our experience, but becomes a “problem”—i.e., the source of suffering/grief—when it is aimed at the pursuit of some incarnation of personal immortality/wholeness. What does this mean?
The background sense of dis-ease/dissatisfaction that characterizes our everyday sense of self strikes us as a kind of personal inadequacy (as in, “there’s something missing in me” or “I’m not good enough”). In order to remedy this personal inadequacy—so we can finally feel “at peace”, never impelled to strive for anything again—we attempt to “fill up” or “clean up” our sense of self with whatever we think will grant us permanent security/peace. This is often more status/power/money/fame—whatever we think will command/demand others’ recognition—or something like perfect mental health or inner “purity” (as in, I am disgusted with myself and want to get rid of all the “bad” in me) or even spiritual enlightenment. Acutely aware of this core vulnerability, we protect the very sense of self—our “identity” or “ego”—that we are attempting to transcend, always running: running away from our own inner discomfort, running towards whatever we think will solidify our ego in the world and add weight to my independent existence, all so that I will matter more, so that I will be secured in and by the world—so that I will be more “real”.
Who decides if my existence carries more weight? Other people. But I want to add more weight to my individual existence so that I don’t have to care about others’ opinions. And yet I need others’ [positive] opinions in order to acquire more weight. So, in order to not care about others’ opinions, I need to care about others’ opinions. And if the weight of my personal existence depends on the assent of other people, I am never “in control” of the weight of my existence. (And we hate not being in control, if only because this lack of control “reminds” me that I don’t matter or that I am not enough—that my independent existence is inherently insecure.)
You realize your freedom in becoming aware of the way(s) in which your awareness is always already determined. Or, stated differently, freedom is self-awareness.
Why Meditate? The Multifaceted Benefits of Meditation
Reasons to Meditate Beyond “Anxiety Relief”:
The “Spiritual” Benefits of Meditation
In becoming aware of the conditions of your individual existence, you begin to realize your freedom. On the one hand, you begin to see that the conditions that are determining your experience are quite personal, and include not just your norms and values, presuppositions and biases, but also your various compulsions/anxieties, rumination, and impulses/motivations. On the other hand, you also begin to see that “you” are (and always were and always will be) embedded in structures of dependence that precede and exceed you (among which are such non-optional conditions as embodiment and various social, historical, cultural, linguistic factors). These are not optional features of your experience that you may or may not have, but are rather are constitutive of your very being in the world: your thinking, feeling, behaving, and even your perceiving. Your personal suffering is exacerbated (or eased) by your habitual forms of being in the world.
Our personal suffering is characterized by, roughly, the discomfort of feeling as though we are not at home/peace with ourselves or our life situation—not “on top of” our circumstances—and by having to engage with a world that won’t respond to our will. That is, we never feel fully complete, never in control of—or adequate to—ourselves and our circumstances (and there isn’t always something that we can do about it). This personal suffering is just the result of the habitual ways of being (thinking, feeling, perceiving, behaving) that we’ve developed and inherited in order to deal with our sense of inadequacy, often to avoid (and attempt to eliminate once and for all) our deeper anxiety/lack/fear (and other attendant difficult emotions/thoughts), by attempting to make our ‘independent’ sense of self “whole” or “complete” (reconciled in/with its world in a final way)—which we think will occur as we accumulate more attention/recognition (via, usually, fame or money or status/status or enlightenment, etc.) so we can secure ourselves against the unpredictabilities of outer life, or by something like “purifying” ourselves of our guilt/defilement so we can secure ourselves against our “inner” turmoil. Meditation discloses to us the ways in which we are habitually and automatically compelled/impelled to engage in/with the world (including ourselves).
Anxiety Relief & Other “Worldly” Benefits of Meditation
Most basically, meditation requires sitting with the more challenging aspects of your inner life (what we commonly refer to as “mind”)—your anxieties, painful emotions, difficult thoughts, etc.—without trying to fix/correct/transcend them. To avoid our inner discomfort, we often avoid the things, people, and situations that produce this discomfort, thus narrowing our lives as we isolate ourselves in order to protect ourselves (from, it turns out, ourselves). And freedom is unavailable to those who remain imprisoned by themselves.
Meditation is a tool of self-awareness. By becoming aware of the ways in which our attention is habitually and automatically pre-occupied, we become aware of our habits before we are consumed by them. Mindfulness meditation helps us to cultivate the capacity to remain with our unwanted thoughts and painful emotions so that our lives aren’t determined by (avoiding) them—that is, so that our response to them is no longer dictated by instinctive avoidance.
As we become accustomed to protecting ourselves against our anxieties with mindless habits, we also become increasingly intolerant of discomfort. As our avoidance behaviours become more entrenched—as they become a part of our instinctive self—they prevent us from pursuing anything (including our most meaningful goals and projects) that requires experiencing the discomfort associated with change.
Becoming aware of (by sitting with) these avoidance habits prevents your painful emotions and difficult thoughts from continuing to dictate the terms of your life. Learning to sit with our anxieties ensures that we won’t “waste” our life running from them. Learning to sit with our anxieties cultivates equanimity and openness—that is, more flexible ways of being in the world that aren’t inhibited and prohibited by habitually rigid (self-involved) ways of thinking, feeling, perceiving, and acting. When we no longer run from the distressing/frightening appearances in our inner lives, we free ourselves from the limitations imposed by the pursuit of invulnerability that was motivated by our distress/fear, and thus more readily and willingly open ourselves up in ways that we don’t feel compelled to control.
When you no longer avoid the more challenging parts of your inner life—when accept yourself more—you are more inclined to honour your own needs and inspirations and better able to see how your resources and fulfillment are tied up in the tangled emotions connected precisely to the things you avoid.
We are then able to think clearly, seriously, and carefully about how we are spending our limited time/attention. We are better positioned to spend more time making connections with those who share similar interests. We can spend more time developing new skills that are related to our motivations (feeling more capable and confident as a result). And, as difficult as this might seem, we spend less time focused on what we lack, and more time focused on our contributions and productive qualities. Notice that we are not emphasizing focusing on what you should reduce/limit/lower/cut/decrease/minimize in your life, but rather on what you can pursue/gain/obtain and how you can expand/grow. This begins with becoming aware of how you are instinctively spending your time right now.
This also means that your existing yoga/spiritual/meditation practice will no longer be an “escape” from your everyday life, but will rather allow you experience all of your life more fully, more deeply. In other words, the goal of yoga or meditation is not “stress relief”, if only because successfully becoming “less stressed” doesn’t mean that you’ll return to a life that no longer produces stress or, perhaps less ideal, stress that feels meaningless.
Here are a few benefits of meditation (and are reasons that people often meditate). Notice that these and other desired benefits of meditation are the result of being able to sit with uncomfortable dimensions of our inner life (a capacity developed in and through meditation):
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Self-acceptance (and self-compassion and self-love, etc.) is not something that you “do”, but is rather a result of being able to sit with your anxieties rather than run from them. This is also the basis for clarity and something like self-confidence.
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Fearlessness is a result of no longer running from your difficult thoughts and emotions.
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Resilience is a result of cultivating the capacity of to sit with our stress/anxiety.
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Selflessness is a result of no longer being subject to the motivations to self-protect/elevate/perfect. This cannot be accomplished in focusing on—or trying to fix—the self.
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Personal “growth” requires that we open ourselves up in ways that we don’t control. This is a result of freeing ourselves from limitations imposed by our habitual self’s desire for security/recognition.
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Creativity is a result of a less ossified sense of self and of fewer rigid habits of being (perceiving, acting, thinking, feeling, behaving). This ossification is tied to our need for self-protection/elevation/perfection (like a wave in the ocean, trying to become its own entity).
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Compassion requires becoming less hypersensitive to—and therefore less automatically and habitually cognizant of—(what we perceive to be) our own imperfections, because this means that we become less hypersensitive to—and therefore less automatically and habitually cognizant of—(what we perceive to be) these same shortcomings in others.
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Healthy relationships and deeper connection require no longer being determined by the destructive aspects of your instinctive self. They also require benefit from being less needy of others’ recognition (and the pursuit of those things—fame/money/status, etc.—that we think will command/demand their attention). Instead, we allow others to give us their free recognition (but don’t notice if/when we don’t receive it because it is no longer overdetermining what we have/do/become).
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Ultimately, the capacity to sit with ourselves allows us to be more comfortable with our freedom: the uncertainty of being undefined.
Most basically, meditation requires sitting with the more challenging aspects of your inner life—your anxieties, painful emotions, difficult thoughts, etc.—without trying to fix/correct/transcend them.
What is The Objective of Meditation?
The benefits of meditation remain hidden to us if we enter into meditation with the intent to fix/perfect ourselves or our inner/outer life. (And this is the context within which meditation is often pursued.) Learning to be aware of this objective should be a core component of all meditation training.
Meditation—or any yoga practice, for that matter—pursued in order to remedy some aspect of one’s “self”—to secure/purify one’s identity against the sense of inner lack—will only reinforce the problem of suffering that we were attempting to understand/deconstruct or subvert. Trying to destroy some aspect of our inner life keeps us entrenched in the dichotomy of avoiding x and pursuing y: the more I want to purify myself, the more hypersensitive I am to shame—I shame easily, I shame myself, I shame others, etc.—and I become more and more pre-occupied with shame, with my “self” and what it lacks, and I become more and more avoidant of the things/people/situations that make me “feel” my lack. In other words, the desire to find some kind of permanent security/peace/purity actually reinforces the basic sense of incompleteness that I was trying to eliminate.
And so the specific way you practice meditation is far less relevant than being vigilant about the impulse to fix/eliminate/transcend. Ultimately, any meditation practice must remain vigilant about this very impulse—to fix/eliminate or to be something/somewhere else, to transcend—without, of course, trying to get rid of it. Meditation is ultimately about bearing witness to the ways our awareness is seemingly compelled (or impelled or motivated or absorbed) beyond itself—i.e., bearing witness to the (self-moving) self-transcending character of being. In other words, meditation is ultimately about bearing witness to the very impulse to self-transcend. Among other things, this also means noticing the very impulse to become a something, a wholly self-determining self. And it also includes the tendency to rely on our struggles to keep us locked into self-definition—something to push against. And this of course includes the impulse to acquire even the “positive” benefits of meditation listed above. We want to notice our habitual such patterns: ways of orienting ourselves in relation to something “outside” of ourselves—including how/when they function as means for evading the discomfort of being dis-oriented, so to speak, of being nothing. In yoga, this is the foundation of self-awareness. (In yoga, self-awareness is self-transcendence.)
What is yoga? Yoga is not the strategic and permanent destruction of the suffering of our inadequacies; yoga just is what remains once we’ve abandoned the quest to “fill up” ourselves with the world (in order to “clean up” our sense of deficiency). This abandonment occurs as a result of bearing direct witness to the incarnations of the impulse to self-transcend. What remains is a more direct experience of one’s “entire” self. What remains, in other words, is self-awareness. In yoga, self-awareness is self-transcendence. This begins and ends with no longer fleeing yourself.
This article about the purpose/goal of meditation is part of our Yogi’s Guide to Yoga. Below, we answer commonly-asked questions about meditation and offer short videos on meditation.
The practice of meditation is just bearing witness to the ways our awareness is seemingly compelled (or impelled or motivated or absorbed) beyond itself—i.e., bearing witness to the (self-moving) self-transcending character of being. In other words, meditation is ultimately about bearing witness to the very impulse to self-transcend. In yoga, this is the foundation of self-awareness.
Frequently Asked Questions about Meditation Practice the Objectives of Meditation
Is the Goal of Meditation to Clear Your Mind or “Stop Thinking”? Are You Supposed to Think While Meditating?
A “clear mind” is a consequence of how you pay attention. Focused attention exercises (e.g., mantra, mindfulness, breath control, etc.) can create a relatively still mind, which allows one to notice the ways in which our awareness is habitually pre-occupied (without getting taken in/up by this pre-occupation). This stance is often described as (and feels like) “detachment”, which just is a description of a different sense that you have of some particular thing (that is, noticing that “you” are not reducible to “it”). But, strictly speaking, meditation is not the practice of actively “clearing” one’s mind (and is also not just the practice of passively doing so).
So, is the ultimate goal in meditation to clear your mind or stop your thoughts? Is meditation about having no thoughts (and “just being” in the “present moment”)? These consequences may or may not occur in our practice, but whether it happens doesn’t actually matter. What matters in meditation is your stance: are you looking to stop your thinking (this is not, strictly speaking, the purpose of meditation) or are you looking to become aware of how your awareness is automatically pre-occupied? If you are, indeed, looking to become aware of how your awareness is automatically pre-occupied, then focusing your attention on something (breath, mantra, etc.) will create the space to distance yourself from (i.e., adopt a different stance towards) your thinking/feeling. Of course, this new stance will change what shows up, but meditation trains access to the stance of observing the content and form of experience rather than being taken in/up by either. The adoption of this different stance has the effect of “clearing your mind”.
Are you supposed to think while meditating? Or, stated differently, if you find yourself thinking while meditating, does this mean that you’re meditating incorrectly? No, of course not.
You’re not really in control of your thinking (in the same way that you’re in control of, say, your hand). Sometimes your thinking is explicit and conscious, but most of the time, thinking is spontaneous. In meditation, what’s more important is noticing that thinking is happening (as it happens, whenever it happens). The purpose of meditation is just to become aware of the ways your awareness is always already pre-occupied. The purpose of meditation is to become aware of how your habitual self is always already pre-occupied.
In meditation, it’s common to have some of object of focus to steady your attention. Whenever you notice that your attention is distracted, it’s a “win” because you’ve become aware of how your attention was pre-occupied. In fact, noticing any distraction is a “win”, including feelings. For example, noticing that the feeling described as “frustration” is also an instance of “success”. The point, however, is not to search for patterns of thinking/feeling, but rather to remain focused on your object of choice—the breathing body, perhaps.
As you develop the capacity to remain focused for longer periods of time, you become better able to remain receptive to particular patterns in your habitual, automatic thinking/feeling. As you begin to notice these patterns in your meditation, you become better able to notice these (and other) patterns outside of your formal meditation. Eventually you may become better able to notice your automatic patterns in situations that creates suffering for you—perhaps in the area of your career/finances, relationships, health, et cetera. Notice the impulse to fix whatever “problem” that you notice. Notice your reaction: do you blame others? Is there a repetitive narrative around this issue? Notice all of it; notice every instance of wanting to transcend your existing self—in other words, notice every instance of desiring. Just notice it. All the while returning to your object of focus.
Yoga is not about fixing your inner or outer life. And, ultimately, the focus of yoga is not the specific terms of your inner/outer life. The purpose of yoga is freedom. And in yoga, you realize your freedom as you become aware of how your awareness is always already determined. In yoga, you become aware of how your awareness is determined by forces that are not subject to your will and—simultaneously—that there is something about “you” that is not reducible to any of these forces. (This is explained more comprehensively in our article exploring the purpose of meditation.)
So, are you supposed to think while meditating? The only thing you’re supposed to do during meditation is noticing what is always already happening. And if thinking is happening, so be it.
Is the Goal in Meditation to Control Your Senses?
In traditional yoga texts, it was somewhat common to conceive of attention as something like the consequence of our sense organs ‘reaching out’ into the world to grasp things (sights, sounds, etc.). This conception would characterize yoga/meditation as being a quest to (and/or result of) control one’s senses (the effect of which is something like not being taken in/up by the habitual self-movement of attending). This practice of controlling or withdrawing one’s senses, however, isn’t a matter of actively stopping all attention, but is rather the practice/result of focusing one’s attention (using any number of methods or meditation practices, including mindfulness meditation). The momentum of focusing one’s attention allows us to notice our habitual ways of reaching out or being absorbed in/with the world, (including—especially—the very impulse to ‘reach out’ or self-transcend).
Is the Goal in Meditation “Detachment”? What is Detachment in Meditation?
To say that one is “detached” from something is just a description of a new sense that one has of said thing. Our awareness is so absorbed in (or consumed by) certain things that we don’t even notice the extent to which these things are determining our awareness. To detach from something in our inner life entails noticing that it exists (which entails noticing what it’s doing) and noticing that “you”—as awareness/consciousness—are not reducible to “it”. Becoming “detached” just is becoming aware of what is determining your awareness. This begins by simply sitting with ourselves, noticing (or “detaching” from) our habitual ways of running from our inner discomfort. This has the effect of something like loosening the grip that our habitual self has on the world/self/others.
The result of detachment (sometimes also called “letting go” or “surrendering”) is not that you end up in some other place outside of (or prior to) experience, but is, rather, the production of a different relationship with what is. This actually feels something like being more connected with life—and with others and with oneself—as we become “detached” from our habitual ways of seeing/organizing the world according to our self-interest. In other words, our experience is less infected with the kind of “self-consciousness” that re-produces suffering, the kind of self-consciousness that wants to keep us at a distance from our conditions/dependence.
What About the Various Different Types of Meditation? What Do Different Types of Meditation Do?
Ultimately, the cultivation of one’s spirituality is the cultivation of one’s sense of wholeness, and this involves, among other things, the recognition that “you”—that is, your individual existence—are not self-contained, do not self-exist, and, instead, “belong”, so to speak, to something that exceeds and precedes you. Some traditions give a name to this something, others don’t (the latter which tend to discourage any kind of striving). Either way, one’s wholeness is not personal but is the consequence of the recognition that one participates in a/the wholeness that precedes/exceeds it. In some traditions, the core practice involves something like “merging/uniting” with that to which you belong (be it a particular thing or with experience in general), which generally involves the cultivation of deep focus and can involve the cultivation of a particular state of being. (A sense of “merging” or “uniting” is not an altogether inaccurate description of the result of bearing witness to the ways in which your awareness is determined, a sense that is also sometimes called “non-dual” experience.) Some forms of traditional meditation are based on the cultivation of specific traits (such as compassion, etc.), but these individual practices are part of larger contexts that are ultimately teaching some version of what we’ve described herein—that you do not (and cannot) self-exist.
The most important/difficult part of meditation is simply beginning the meditation—i.e., intervening in the momentum of the habitual self. As a practice, meditation is just this: intervention that does not itself become mindless ritual—intervention that forgets itself.
How Do You Know if You Are Meditating Correctly?
The purpose of meditation is become aware of the ways in which your attention is always already absorbed. In yoga, you realize your freedom in noticing the ways in which your awareness is always already habitually absorbed by inner/outer life.
Traditionally, meditation begins with focused attention. Focused attention is used as a means of cultivating a sense of inner stability—i.e., the capacity to not be swept up in/by whatever was determining your attention. Common objects of focus include a mantra or your breath (which is always already happening). Regardless of which object you select, the basic practice of focused attention meditation involves turning (and returning) your attention to said object whenever the mind wanders.
Noticing that you’re distracted is a “win” because, in the moment you notice that you are/were distracted, you’ve become directly aware of how your attention was pre-occupied. Similarly, noticing that you’re frustrated or that you’re thinking are all instances of “success” because you’ve become directly aware of how your attention was pre-occupied. (You may even notice patterns in your thinking/feeling, but actively searching for patterns is not our objective.)
How do you know if you are meditating correctly?
You are meditating incorrectly (i.e., not meditating) if you are trying to become calm (or trying to eliminate/repress/suppress your stress/anxiety). You are meditating [correctly] when you notice that you are trying to become calm (or that you are trying to eliminate/repress/suppress your stress/anxiety or painful feelings). You are meditating [correctly] when you notice that you are trying to acquire/eliminate a certain feeling/state. This desire can manifest itself in other ways:
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trying to “transcend” your current experience and transport yourself to some “peak experience” or state of being (You are meditating correctly when you notice that you are trying to get away from your current experience.)
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trying to fix/purify your inner life, or trying to obtain something like self-mastery. (You are meditating correctly when you notice that you are trying to fix/purify/control your inner life and, indirectly, how others perceive of you.)
In short, you’re meditating incorrectly if you’re trying to accomplish something—anything—in/with your meditation; you’re meditating incorrectly if you’re trying to accomplish any number of things associated with meditation: becoming still/motionless, extra alert, “non-judgemental”, and/or “dis-identifying” from your thoughts, prevent mind wandering, achieve some form of heightened awareness, or simply trying to be in the present moment, etc. You’re meditating correctly when you become aware that striving was happening.
All of this also means that you are meditating incorrectly if you are trying to mediate correctly. You are meditating correctly when you become aware that striving was happening—you were trying to meditate correctly. Meditating correctly has nothing to do with producing any particular feeling/state. You simply notice whatever is arising as you continue to return your attention to your chosen object.
So, how do I know if I am meditating correctly?
Of all the so-called signs you are meditating correctly, the most important noticing instances of fleeing yourself—that is, when you notice striving or desire, the impulse to self-transcend. (Of course, this doesn’t mean that striving/desire is “bad”; we’re simply noticing the nature of its constitution.) You are meditating correctly when you’ve noticed incarnations of habitually and automatically running from yourself.
This means that you’re meditating correctly when you’re able to remain with the more challenging aspects of inner life rather than habitually (and unthinkingly) react to them. You’re meditating correctly when you’re no longer fleeing your anxieties, compulsions, rumination, etc. (including by trying to achieve a different state of being)—when you’re neither heeding nor fleeing the compulsion to be elsewhere or otherwise, but are simply bearing witness to its self-occurring.
And you are meditating correctly when you notice the other side of this self-moving compulsion (i.e., striving to flee yourself): the feeling of dis-ease or “lack” that motivated the very quest to accomplish something in/with your meditation, that motivates the quest to have/do/be whatever allows you to feel complete (so you never feel compelled/impelled to avoid or strive for anything, ever again).
All of this also means that you are meditating [correctly] when you notice whatever is happening, even in moments of deep focus: when focused, you are aware that focus is happening. When inhaling, you are aware that inhaling is happening. When exhaling, you are aware that exhaling is happening. Sensations are happening. Even the body is happening.
You are meditating incorrectly (i.e., not meditating) if you are trying to become calm (or trying to eliminate/repress/suppress your stress/anxiety). You are meditating [correctly] when you notice that you are trying to become calm (or that you are trying to eliminate/repress/suppress your stress/anxiety or painful feelings). You are meditating [correctly] when you notice that you are trying to acquire/eliminate a certain feeling/state.
Is Meditation Just Sitting Quietly?
Is meditation just sitting quietly?
Yes and no. People “meditate” in different ways: sitting, chanting, walking, lying down, eyes open, breath manipulation, etc. The important thing is not really what you do when you meditate; the important thing is understanding why you’re meditating. Once you understand the purpose of meditation, you realize that what you do is far less important than how you do it.
The purpose of meditation is to become aware of the ways in which your attention is always already pre-occupied.
This first requires some form of settling your attention. And this can be done in relatively more active or passive ways. Examples of more active forms of focusing your attention include chanting a mantra (mantra meditation) or manipulating the breath. These active forms of focused attention meditation require your active involvement—you have to be “doing” something. Examples of more passive forms of focusing your attention include various forms of mindfulness meditation (e.g., mindfulness of breathing) and what is sometimes called “open awareness” meditation. These passive forms of focused attention meditation require your noticing what is already happening [by itself], including anything happening in the environment/mind/body/state, such as thoughts/feelings, sounds, and even so-called “distractions”. Developing the skill of focused attention is most easily accomplished in controlled circumstances (e.g., when in a quiet place).
Once you’ve settled your attention, you’re able to notice the ways that you become “distracted”; in other words, you’re able to notice some habitual ways of thinking/feeling that you perhaps had not recognized. In fact, you might even be able to notice certain recurring themes in your automatic (i.e., distracted) thinking/feeling—such as thinking about the future, certain people, what you lack, anger, self-criticism, etc. These themes could recur for weeks/months/years, or they could depend on some situation in which you happen to be. These recurring themes reflect particular modes of desire—i.e., the impulse to want to have/be/do something(s) other than what you have/are/do right now.
But meditation is not just about understanding your personal, inner life. Meditation is ultimately about recognizing the ways in which you are determined in and by both personal and universal contexts. You are always already in the middle of existence, so to speak; you are never “outside of” or “prior to” your existence. You are always already in some context. Some contexts are universal: you are embodied, attuned to a particular socio-linguistic-historical culture, you are subject to desire, time, memory, etc. Other contexts are particular: you are reading this right now, because of a question that arose spontaneously, motivated by some interest you’ve had in meditation, perhaps because of some feeling of acute/chronic uneasiness or inner lack, etc.
And meditation is not about fixing any of this. Wanting to fix it only reinforces the thing that was causing your suffering in the first place. (This is explained in our more comprehensive guide to meditation.) Meditation is simply about becoming aware of the automatic, habitual self and its constituent parts. Meditation allows for the recognition of the ways in which you are determined—that is, of the ways in which your awareness is always already preoccupied.
And so is meditation just sitting quietly? You’re probably now in a better position to see how the answer to this question can’t be answered with a definitive “yes” or “no”, how meditation is more than just about details such as what meditation posture one should adopt or whether one should just sit in silence or sit quietly. Once your attention is focused (by means that may or may not be quiet), meditation amounts to a kind of receptivity/passivity (which can be associated with being “quiet”), but a passivity that depends on the activity of remaining receptive to the happening of experience itself—i.e., of remaining receptive to Yourself. (And since meditation is ultimately about seeing how your awareness is pre-occupied, this receptivity can be carried into all areas of life.)
What is the Best Time of Day to Meditate?
There’s a sense in which the “best” time to meditate is when it is most inconvenient/uncomfortable to do so. In other words, the best time of day (or times of day) to meditate might be when your habits of avoidance/desire are particularly strong. This is, of course, easier for those who are not in full control of when they meditate (e.g., participants in a meditation class/group/retreat, or monks). However, for those of us wanting to begin a simple practice at home, the optimal time to meditate might be simply whenever you’ll actually do it.
Strictly speaking, the best time to meditate (or the ideal amount of meditation) depends on the individual and their circumstances. The most important/difficult part of meditation is simply beginning the meditation—i.e., intervening in the momentum of the habitual self. As a practice, meditation is just this: intervention that does not itself become mindless ritual—intervention that forgets itself.
Because mornings and nights are typically the most controllable parts of our day (as they are framed by our need to sleep, which is generally tied to a specific time/location), maintaining a morning/night ritual may be less difficult than interrupting the momentum of the habitual self at later parts of the day (say, in the afternoon, or at work). From a worldly perspective, a little ‘silence’ in the morning —which we may not adequately understand until we’ve experienced it—can provide a different vantage point from which to plan our days, determine (and even interrogate) our priorities, and re-connect with our values. This (less pre-absorbed) frame of mind can also produce a different interpretation of our stress; we are better able to distinguish meaningful stress from meaningless stress.
But this isn’t always true. Some find the afternoon to be an ideal time fo day to meditate, as meditation can serve as a way of withdrawing from one’s entanglement with the demands of the day.
What is the best time of day to meditate? Does it matter when you meditate? Ultimately, not at all. As long as you are clear about why you’re meditating—to settle your attention in order to notice how your habitual self is pre-occupied—then you can even experiment with meditating at different times or situations just to notice how your attention is wrapped up. You might choose to meditate prior to (or after) certain experiences that produce stress or discomfort. Whereas the situation is often more important than the location, you can, indeed, explore meditating in different locations: in bed, at work, before or after yoga and breathwork, waiting at the doctor’s office, etc.. The point of your meditation, however, is not to fix/solve your discomfort, but rather to witness whatever is happening.
Depending on the individual, embedding one’s meditation practice in accompanying rituals may be more/less of a hinderance (e.g., some meditate at a special time/place, some meditate on a special cushion, some meditate in particular clothing, some meditate with particular items or as part of a larger ritual, etc.). Though rituals remain an important part of changing ourselves (i.e., our new behaviours become habit through practicing them “ritually”), the core habit we’re attempting in meditation practice is becoming aware. And so, ultimately, while there may be a convenient time to cultivate focused attention and mindfulness, there is, strictly speaking, no best time to meditate, no best time to notice how your habitual self is automatically pre-occupied.
Should You Meditate Sitting or Lying Down?
Is it okay to meditate while lying down? Should you meditate sitting or lying down? Ultimately, either is fine.
Different meditation traditions have recommended that students not lie down for various reasons. For our purposes the most important such reason is the possibility that you’ll fall asleep. If this is the case, however, the fix is simple: if you feel sleepy or find that you fall asleep when meditating while lying down, stop meditating while lying down (unless, of course, you’re meditating for the purpose of falling asleep).
From a traditional perspective, however, meditation wasn’t pursued in order to solve any particular material problem, including the problem of insomnia. From a traditional perspective, the purpose of meditation was to become directly aware of how your habitual self—your habitual perception, thinking, feeling, acting—is always already pre-occupied.
Becoming aware of the ways in which your awareness is always already pre-occupied requires maintaining a certain receptivity to what is always already happening. And this is more easily accomplished by cultivating a kind of inner stability, which will allow you to notice your perceptual habits without becoming consumed by them. In other words, inner stability will allow you to notice the myriad ways in which you become “distracted” (that you probably had never realized). As your inner stability grows, you can then meditate in different situations—including while lying down—in order to learn the habitual ways in which your attention occupies itself these different situations.
In our formal meditation practice, we try to limit as many obstacles as possible to the cultivation of focus and inner stability. One such obstacle is, of course, falling asleep. Another “distraction” is muscle fatigue, which can more readily accompany meditations done in uncomfortable positions. As such, sitting is generally regarded as the “best” position in the sense that it’s a position that can be held for a long time while allowing for remaining aware/alert.
As focused attention becomes more accessible—as you become better able to notice the ways in which your awareness is pre-occupied—you can then change your circumstances/environment so that you can notice how your habitual self is taken in/up in said circumstances. In other words, there are good reasons to do forms of meditation that actually encourage “distractions” (including standing and walking meditations, but also situational meditations), but these types of meditation are typically more fruitful for those who are further along their journey—i.e., who have developed the capacity to remain in themselves, so to speak, without being swept up/away by what appears. Eventually, this habit—of noticing how your awareness habitually becomes absorbed—will become second nature.
In noticing that your awareness is pre-occupied, you become “free” of said pre-occupation. For example, noticing that you were just thinking creates a moment of “space” in which you are no longer unconsciously thinking. You experience something like being in the present moment. Eventually, you begin to notice themes in the way that your attention is pre-occupied, and eventually start noticing how these various thematic pre-occupations determine your experience outside of formal meditation.
When you can do this without trying to fix any of it, the object of meditation moves beyond the terms of your own idiosyncratic inner life towards noticing the ways that individual existence is determined by forces that are not subject to your will: embodiment, language, culture, et cetera. In yoga, you discover your “freedom” in becoming aware of the ways in which you are determined in and by both personal and universal contexts. And while this discovery has much to do with your [existential] positionality, it has nothing to do with your meditation position.
Should You Meditate With Your Eyes Open? Is it Important to Close Your Eyes While Meditating?
Different meditation traditions/lineages have their own rules around meditation. However, understanding the purpose of meditation will allow you to answer many of these types of questions (about the details of meditation practice) yourself.
Meditation is just about becoming aware of the ways in which your awareness is always already pre-occupied. This means remaining receptive to what is always already happening. Therefore, “meditating” in different situations will allow you to see how your awareness is automatically and habitually pre-occupied in different situations.
However, maintaining a receptiveness to what is happening in inner/outer life is better achieved once you are capable of focusing your attention. This is why, when we begin meditation, we often aim to cultivate the capacity for focused attention by controlling as many variables as possible (i.e., limiting as many possible distractions as possible). As such, we typically:
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Adopt a physical position that we can maintain for some time (such as sitting, not standing because of muscle fatigue, and not lying down in case we are prone to falling asleep), and ensure that there aren’t many distractions in our environment (after all, our inner life will distract us enough from focusing our attention!).
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Close our eyes to prevent the various objects from calling our attention. Later on, when we meditate with our eyes open, we will be in a better position to see just how our attention is pre-occupied by our surroundings.)
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Meditate in a physical location that is relatively distraction-free. This means avoiding places that may trigger fears (e.g., public places where one fears being accosted by people/animals) and/or where one may be interrupted (e.g., by others, phones). Some people feel less anxious meditating with background noise/music, and so eventually, meditating without the accompanying noise will allow you to notice what is happening with your awareness that motivated you to seek noise in the first place. It’s not that wanting noise is “abnormal”, but just that it may be distracting you from a background uneasiness (that perhaps motivated you to seek meditation in the first place).
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Have an object upon which you focus your attention. Examples include a mantra or the breath. Chanting a mantra and manipulating the breath are two active forms of focused-attention meditations. A more passive form of focused-attention meditation is mindfulness of the breath, which is the practice of focusing on the breath that is always already happening (without any kind of active manipulation).
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Some meditation techniques emphasize fixing our attention on an external object (which would require keeping the eyes open). Generally speaking, however, meditation is taught with eyes closed, especially to beginners as they work to cultivate the capacity to focus their attention.
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As you become more experienced with focusing your attention and noticing the ways in which your awareness is pre-occupied, you can manipulate your circumstances so that you can notice how your awareness is taken in/up in said circumstances. Eventually, this habit will become second nature and you’ll be able to notice your awareness becoming absorbed in your daily life.
What is yoga? Yoga is not the strategic and permanent destruction of the suffering of our inadequacies; yoga just is what remains once we’ve abandoned the quest to “fill up” ourselves with the world (in order to “clean up” our sense of deficiency). This abandonment occurs as a result of bearing direct witness to the incarnations of the impulse to self-transcend. What remains is a more direct experience of one’s “entire” self. What remains, in other words, is self-awareness. In yoga, self-awareness is self-transcendence. This begins and ends with no longer fleeing yourself.
An Introduction to Meditation Practice
Mindfulness Meditation: Mindfulness of Breathing
Mindfulness of breathing (called ānāpānasati in Pali, the language in which original Buddhist texts were composed) does not require that you actively carry out a task (such as chant/visualize something, manipulate one’s breathing, etc.). Meditations that include active tasking can more readily (though certainly not necessarily) encourage weaponizing one’s meditation in order to push away distractions or “bad” thoughts/feelings. In a mindfulness of breathing practice, you remain passive in paying attention to a phenomenon that is always already happening: your breathing. The experience of this more passive practice is something like “receiving” the breath (with the body). In mindfulness of breathing, you simply return your attention to the feeling of your breath whenever you notice that your attention has wandered. Noticing that you’re distracted is actually a “win” because, in the moment you notice that you’re distracted, you’ve become directly aware of how your attention was pre-occupying itself. Among other things, this meditation cultivates focus and passivity, both of which are tremendously important for both the worldly benefits of meditation and for the more significant realizations about the nature of self/experience discussed above. And while this meditation is certainly not just for beginners, it remains a simple (and portable) way of preparing yourself for other forms of meditation that you may find intriguing.
However, no meditation practice/technique—including mindfulness of breathing—is immune to the spiritually-destructive effects of one’s intention to fix oneself with meditation. But even if this intention is present, there’s no need to repress/suppress it; simply notice that it is/was happening.
Being with Yourself: A Simple Mindfulness of Breathing [ānāpānasati] Exercise
This exercise can be done in any position (or yoga pose), including whatever position you happen to be in while reading this.
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Start by placing your attention on your breathing body. Your body is always already breathing. For this exercise, you don’t need to take control of (or try to fix) your breath (e.g., make it longer/deeper/smoother, etc.). Simply find your breath with your attention. Notice where you feel your breath most (nose, chest, abdomen?).
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Simply feel the body breathe. There’s no need to do anything: there’s nothing to obtain/achieve or make happen. Your body knows how to breathe. Let the breath lead, and have your attention follow. Don’t get ahead of the breath; it can’t go anywhere. Let it “come” to you; “receive” the breath with the body. Nothing to analyze. Try to feel just one breath at a time. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to be done.
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Whenever your mind wanders, return your attention to your already-breathing body. (Let your mind know that you’ll re-visit important thoughts once you're finished.) Because this is an exercise in awareness, every time you’ve noticed that you’re distracted, you’ve “won”.
Notice that these instructions run counter to the more common advice to (actively) “breathe”. This mindfulness exercise is intended to help you cultivate a greater capacity for passively “letting go” (which always entails letting go of one’s preoccupation with oneself).
He continuously perceives the body as the body, sensations as sensations, the mind as the mind. Exhaling, he knows “I am exhaling”; inhaling, he knows “I am inhaling”.
- Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (circa first century BCE)
The Purposes and Practice of Meditation
Further Reading on Meditation
This article on the objective of meditation is part of our Yogi’s Guide to Yoga that focuses on yoga practice. Our FAQ section above responds to common questions about meditation, including Is meditation ‘detachment’? Is meditation ‘clearing the mind’? Is meditation ‘controlling the senses’? What do different forms of meditation accomplish? How do I know if I am meditating properly? What is the best time to meditate? Is meditation just ‘sitting quietly’?.
We also discuss the worldly benefits of meditation in the description of our private meditation and breathwork training services for leaders. For those looking to further explore the meditation in the context of abstention, a discussion about fasting and abstinence is available in our article about the “spiritual” benefits of forms of fasting (including abstinence).
For those looking to further explore the theme of “inner lack”, see the work of David R. Loy. We recommend his concise and accessible 2008 book, Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution (Wisdom Publications).
For those looking to further explore the themes of freedom, determinacy, and an ethics of openness, see the 2017 paper by Canadian philosopher John Russon, ‘Freedom and Passivity: Attention, Work, and Language’. John Russon’s YouTube Channel contains an excellent introductions/companions to many of the great (and dense) works of philosophy, with a focus on existentialism, phenomenology, Greek philosophy, and German Idealism.
No meditation practice/technique... is immune to the spiritually-destructive effects of intending to fix oneself with meditation. (But even if this intention is present, there’s no need to repress/suppress it; simply notice that it is/was happening.)