Modern Meditation is in a Mess

Let’s talk about how modern meditation is in a mess, and how you might like to avoid most current forms of meditation if you really want to go deep with self-transformation work.

It may sound like I’m joking here. To be honest, I’m exaggerating a little bit, and this article is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Yet I’m also being very serious, because this is a crucial topic and one that is close to my heart.

The Crux of the Modern Meditation Problem

What do I mean when I say that modern meditation is in a mess?

Well, most of us have a limited and somewhat naive view of meditation. Most people think that in meditation we’re trying to relax, shut off our mind and feel good, and that’s all there is to it.

If you ask most people what meditation is, they’ll say: “Oh! Meditation! I meditate sometimes!”, or: “I meditate when I feel like I need it”, or “I use YouTube guided audios or Headspace or Calm for 10 minutes a day.” That’s the typical response you’ll get.

What about mindfulness? Ask them what mindfulness is and you’ll get much the same response, because the two are often confounded, confused and blurred together.

These views are the 80-20 of modern meditation: the 20% of everything there is to know about meditation that 80% of people focus on.

So, what’s this got to do with modern meditation being in a mess?

Well, that is the mess. The fact that we treat meditation in this way is precisely why meditation is in a mess, and it ultimately means that modern meditation constitutes a very simplistic form of meditation.

When you see adverts, YouTube videos or guided meditations, this is what they focus on! “Just relaaaaax … and let go of your thoughts… and feel gooood.”

And, yes: this is why modern meditation is in a mess.

Why Relaxing is a Pitiful Goal

You might wonder why I’m writing an entire article on this, so let me explain why this is a problem.

First of all, it’s because these instructions constitute getting your toes into the meditation water, if even that.

If this is what you think meditation is, if this is your goal when you practice, and your relationship to it never matures further, you’re leaving so much on the table. It’s hard to begin to describe just how much you’re leaving on the table.

One of the tricky things about teaching meditation is that people often ask why I meditate, or what the benefits of meditation are, or what meditation is, and these are tricky questions to quickly answer in an informal situation.

It would be like asking a fitness freak about exercise: what it is, what the benefits are, and why they do it. If they wanted to give a complete answer to that gargantuan question, without oversimplification or reductionism, the fitness freak would have to prepare a fine-tuned, concise answer.

To compound matters, it’s hard to describe meditation in ways that people ordinary people will understand. In any case, I find I often fall short of succinctly describing what it is.

I were to try to put it succinctly, I’d say it’s a tool that leads you to a profound transformation of who you are, of who you think you truly are, of what you think life is, and of why you think things work the way they do.

It’s a practice that can bring a profound level of personal change on many levels. This work goes far, far beyond feeling good for 20 minutes.

If that doesn’t make sense, I can tell you to go and look at the studies involving intermediate and veteran meditators, and you may end up agreeing that it’s about far more than just relaxing for 20 minutes.

That’s why I strongly dislike when we equate meditation to relaxation. In doing so, we neglect so many dimensions of this work.

Meditation is not relaxation spelled differently.

jon kabat-zinn

An Analogy from Fitness and Exercise

Let me draw on an analogy to help you understand the difference between meditating for relaxation and meditating for real.

Imagine the health and appearance of a person who’s obese, eats terrible food and never exercises, and then compare that with a seasoned athlete or sportsperson, like a runner, a cyclist or a weightlifter. Compare the levels of fitness of the two, their appearance, their body fat percentage, and so on.

And now, imagine that the overweight person comes to you and tells you: “I go to the gym for half an hour every couple of days because it makes me feel good.”

Doesn’t that seem a little strange? Is that really all the gym is about? Shouldn’t they be focused on improving their health rather than just feeling a little better?

The “meditation=relaxation” fad is analogous to telling an obese person to go to the gym for half an hour every couple of days because they’re going to feel good.

Most likely, if this person’s reason for going to the gym was only to feel good, two or three years later, they’d still eat terrible food, be seriously overweight, be visibly unhealthy, and still be suffering all the other side effects of obesity.

This is because they’re only going to the gym to feel good. Sure, they might feel a little better sometimes, but they’re still nowhere near the seasoned athlete because they’re still living their life as always.

Now you’re starting to get an idea of the difference between a non-meditator and a seasoned meditator, both in terms of attitude and in terms of their “fitness”. It’s a radical difference, but not a physical one, and not one that’s easy to spot unless you know what to look for. It’s a radical difference in perception, in presence, in self-image, in self-understanding, in the levels of awareness one can access.

Listen to my podcast episode on this topic.

Ignore Mainstream Modern Meditation

As part of this discussion, I want to give you a high-level recommendation for learning meditation: avoid mainstream books, communities, videos and teachers. Why? Because the popular stuff tends to be flimsy and hopelessly diluted.

I’ll give you an example. I recently created a course called Mindfulness for Students, and I’m currently promoting it to universities across the world. I’ve had several universities linking to it, including Cambridge University. (If you’re a student, you’re welcome to use it!)

On the way, I’ve passed through dozens of universities websites in the last few months. Let me tell you: if you’d never learned meditation before and wanted to do a course on one of these sites, there’s a very good chance you’d leave with the idea that meditation is about relaxation, feeling good and calming the mind.

It’s the same with the big apps out there: they promote and perpetuate the myth that meditation is all about relaxing and feeling good. They don’t tell you that what they teach is the beginning of meditation and is a useful thing to do because it’ll get you inspired and help you relieve some of your stress.

They paint it as though this were meditation, end of story. That this little thing, this little tiny part of meditation (that is not even necessary) is meditation, and that’s all it is.

As someone who’s been meditating regularly for nearly 10 years and has studied with some world-class meditation teachers, the state of modern meditation gives me a lot of pause.

Modern Meditation = Learning the Times Tables

Let’s look at another analogy, using another field that you might not associate with meditation at all.

I’m sure that if you’re reading this, you’ve learned your times tables, and pretty well. But where my readers may differ is in their answers to the following questions.

Let me ask you: where do times tables fall in the grand scheme of mathematics? What role do they play in mathematics? How much of mathematics is times tables? How much of mathematics depends on times tables?

Obviously, the way you’ll answer this question depends on how much maths you’ve studied. Regardless, we can say that times tables are part of mathematics, but one we move beyond very early in our learning journey. And, as you may suspect, advanced mathematics looks nothing like times tables.

In short, if you were to equate mathematics with times tables and were to believe that they are equivalent, you would be so shockingly ignorant of mathematics, its scope, and its breadth and depth of application. It’d be a case of sheer ignorance and flagrant reductionism.

Now, it’s true that this is what we do with mathematics in everyday situations. We all learn times tables when we’re children, and they’re a kind of mathematical cliche, so they stick in the mind. Often they’re part of our cute, fun memories from childhood.

Yet it’s also true that most of us learn way more than the times tables, so we realise that they’re a limited mathematical tool. We may innocently equate maths with times tables, but we still know maths is infinitely broader than them.

Just as equating mathematics with times tables would be incredibly reductionistic, so is equating meditation to relaxation.

Sadly, with the meditation-relaxation fad, it’s not just a cute idea. People equate the two because they truly believe they’re equivalent. And it’s not surprising, because at least 80% of modern meditation is along the lines of “lie down in a quiet space… put your headphones in… close your eyes… listen to me talking… feel goooood.”

It’s shocking, really. It’s shocking that we’ve equated the entire field of meditation with meditation times tables.

What Role Does Relaxation Play?

I alluded earlier to the possibility that relaxation does play a small role in meditation, so let’s discuss that a little.

Overall, my view is that relaxation can happen during meditation, and often does. It’s not a bad thing: it can certainly help you go deeper with this work. However, it’s not necessary, and it’s not an end in itself.

If you feel relaxed during a meditation session, that is simply a pleasant effect. It’s not guaranteed, it’s not necessary, and it’s not a goal to strive for.

It’s true that when comparing different kinds of meditation you’ll find many little nuances in how they treat relaxation, but in broad terms that’s what it’s: a possible pleasant effect. Always remember that it’s not necessary, and it’s not a goal of this work. If you don’t feel relaxed during meditation, it’s not a problem.

You can also think of it like this: you don’t have to measure your meditation success according to how relaxed you feel. In fact, if you do, you’re going to get very frustrated.

To be blunt, sometimes in meditation you’ll feel like terrible. Sometimes you’ll have emotional challenges. Sometimes you’ll be plagued with thoughts. Do any of these experiences render your meditation void? No, they don’t.

I don’t want to make it sound like I’m blaming people for wanting to feel relaxed. I have my ways of relaxing. For example, I like going to the countryside: it’s one of the things I do to relax, get out of my usual routine and take time away from my daily stressors. We all need ways to relax, so I’m not trying to dismiss people’s needs for relaxation.

What I am trying to say is that equating meditation with relaxation is very problematic.

To put it another way, whether or not you’re practicing your meditation technique correctly isn’t a function of what you’re experiencing in your body and mind. Sure, certain experiences like relaxation can make meditation easier, but relaxation itself is not the measure.

Now, if feeling relaxed helps motivate you, or helps you glimpse what meditation is about, or helps you feel more comfortable in your body, or helps you to sit still for an extended period of time, then it’s a good enough introduction to this work. Beyond that, it’s of very little import in meditation.

You might like my YouTube video on this topic.

Relaxation ≠ Meditation Success

To sum up: relaxation is not a measure for meditation success. I really want you to remember this for the rest of your meditation career. Relaxation is not a measure of meditation success.

If it is your measure for meditation success, you’re not meditating. You can call it meditation if you want, but as far as I’m concerned, if all you’re doing is trying to feel relaxed, you are not meditating.

So, modern meditation is in a mess because we think it’s all about relaxation, when the two are barely related.

Interestingly enough, if you meditate regularly for a sufficient length of time, you’ll begin to realise that it empowers you to take on life regardless of whatever it throws at you, regardless of how it makes you feel.

The Potential

So, if meditation isn’t about generating relaxation, what is it about?

Well, meditation will likely change how you…

see life,
see yourself,
experience your body,
experience your mind,
experience your senses,
experience your thoughts,
understand your life, your past and your future,
understand other people,
view and deal with your problems,
view and deal with pain,

and more.

In terms of the emotional benefits, your psychological mastery may become so developed that in moments of difficulty and stress, you won’t have to change how you feel.

This doesn’t mean we lose our ability to discriminate, nor does it mean you have to passively and meekly tolerate feeling terrible. But it does mean you realise what emotional difficulties are in a way that you’ve probably never understood before.

You get your life back: instead of having to artificially induce relaxation, you’re now feel from the insatiable need to feel a certain way in the first place.

The Incremental Meditation Path

If you spend the next 5, 10, 15 or 20 years sitting trying to feel relaxed, you’ll look back and realise that you’ve grown very little as a meditator.

So, let’s discuss how to go beyond learning times tables, and discover the remarkable breadth and depth of this work.

In broad terms, you want to seek out resources that take you beyond the mainstream, and build an incremental learning path. If you strive to slowly improve your meditation skills over the months and years, you’ll go far beyond the level that most people reach.

Start with techniques like Vipassana, proper mindfulness, or elementary Zen, and slowly work into intermediate territory. After five to ten years, start looking at Mahamudra, Dzogchen, or any other non-dual Buddhist traditions.

If you’re just starting out, you might like to try my free six-week meditation course (see below). It helps you master the essentials of mindfulness meditation and build a solid foundation in spiritual practice.

Now, it’s time to practice. Every day is a meditation day.