On July 14th, Dr. Melissa West of Contact Talk Radio interviewed me for her hour-long show that will air at 8am on July 28th at www.contacttalkradio.com.

Dr. Melissa West had read a pre-published version of the book and was greatly interested in having me on her show.  Her questions were very thoughtful and displayed an understanding of meditation from having a meditation practice of her own.

A good portion of the interview covered the areas of meditator’s guilt and the promise of a meditation practice, which were topics discussed at the recent teacher-training retreat held in Spokane, Washington.  Since I can’t talk about the radio interview as this point, I would like to introduce the discussion at the teacher-training retreat, where I was joined by Linda Modaro, Mary Webster, Nelly Kaufer, and Dan Nussbaum.

I will begin with a question from Nelly Kaufer.

Nelly: I found it interesting to contemplate this line (in the introduction to the book): “When you are interested in the dependently arisen inner world of your meditation sittings, meditator’s guilt has no hold or sway over you.” So I spent some time trying to put this together. If you are looking at the dependently arisen inner world, then things get pretty interesting…. So interest trumps guilt. Instead of feeling like I should be meditating, I am meditating because I’m interested. Is that basically what you are saying?

Jason: Yes. (When I wrote it) I had the sense of that passage referring to when there is a “doer” of the practice. Seeing the dependently arisen nature of your experience really starts to take away that doer, and therefore there is much less of that kind of activity (meditator’s guilt).

I came up with the term meditator’s guilt quite by accident nearly a decade ago, and have used it sparingly since. It came to me during a workshop when I asked each person to tell me about his or her meditation practice. Practically all of them said that they did not meditate every day, which was often followed by other disparaging remarks about their ability to meditate. Initially, this saddened me. Only later did I wake up to enormity of this problem with how meditation is being perceived as a disciplined activity, much like physical exercise (which interestingly enough produces a similar kind of guilt).

When doing any meditation practice, a “doer” of the meditation practice is created, even if that practice is about no-self or transcendence. This doer becomes a condition for feelings of guilt, incompetence, and failure that creep into the meditation practice. Instead of trying to get rid of a self that does the meditation practice, we can learn to see into it as dependently arisen.

For example, if I find myself discouraged by my mind wandering too much in my meditation sittings, I can look at my “discouragement” at my mind wandering, instead of trying to stop my mind from wandering. That discouragement has a self-structure to it—it has a particular tone of voice, a set vocabulary, a memory or two of prior experiences of the same sort, and perhaps other  elements that are on the edge of my awareness, but can be picked out over time as I stay with that experience while also allowing my mind to wander (if that is what continues to happen).

Meditator’s guilt may then appear in one’s meditation practice—for how could it not when one is trying to do a particular practice correctly (even this one!)—but it may have less credibility, and therefore less sway over one.  

In our discussion of this passage about “meditator’s guilt no longer having sway over you,” Dan Nussbaum remarked that this sounded like a promise. That is, if one meditates in this way, meditator’s guilt won’t arise or won’t be a problem anymore.

I replied that I have consistently seen people have meditator’s guilt intruding less into their practice, so that is a promise I can put forth. I went on to say that people can meditate for some time without such guilt, but when they hear a talk or read a book on meditation that stresses effort and discipline, then meditator’s guilt may once again enter into their meditation practice.

Later on in the discussion, Linda Modaro returned to this idea of the promise, and we drew connections between meditator’s guilt and the epilogue of the book, where I describe what this practice may look like after doing it for a period of time.

Linda: I like that you thought about whether you can make that promise. You have seen it enough that you can actually state that. That ties in with the epilogue… However they go through this approach, and by staying with their experience, they will come to their own conclusions and understandings, and that they can come to depend on that. The author is promising that will happen… It is onward leading. 

Jason: Though it is not presented as a goal. It is presented as part of the whole process of meditating in this way. 

The kind of promise that is found in giving someone a goal in meditation and telling him that only this meditation practice done correctly will lead to that goal is a different kind of promise than saying that through the process of unlearning meditation you may notice a lessening of meditator’s guilt. The first kind of promise will keep one in a particular meditation practice for a long time, with the goal serving as the main reason for continuing that practice. On pages 33 and 34, under a sub-chapter titled “Dropping a Meditation Practice That Doesn’t Work,” I illustrate this first kind of promise:

"Often when meditation instructions are given, they are given with the promise that if done correctly, you will experience a certain result. Some people are promised enlightenment, partial awakening, relief from stress or pain, greater concentration, happiness, bliss, peace of mind, an overall sense of well-being and accomplishment if they persist with the instruction and do it faithfully, ardently, consistently, and above all, correctly, as it is taught by the teacher or the lineage of teachers within a tradition.

This puts some meditators into a serious bind. Even though they may be having difficulty doing the instruction, if they stop doing it, they feel they won’t realize the promise of the practice. They will have failed. The daily failures of not being able to do the meditation practice will pale in comparison with the monumental failure of never getting the promised outcome. Besides, everyone has heard stories of someone meditating for years and years in a certain way with no success, and then one day he gets it. All the struggle, turmoil, and pain has been of use. So it is quite common to think, “That can happen to me if I stick with this meditation practice long enough.”

This passage illustrates what it is like when there is a goal to be reached rather than a subtle change in one’s attitude that one may notice.

I am promising that a subtle change in attitude regarding meditation will occur, such as having less guilt concerning one’s performance or skill as a meditator. And I can make that promise because I have heard many people tell me just that, without my ever having said it will happen. So now I am saying it. I’m not promising the reader a meditative attainment or realization; this is much more down-to-earth. One will just be able to meditate in a looser, more open way, and feel less guilt about it.