Meditation Practice Without a Spiritual Scoreboard

A meditation session can become an examination you conduct while taking it. Am I calm enough? Am I doing it correctly? Why did someone else describe a better experience?

Choose a smaller question that the occasion can actually answer. What happens when you give a few moments of attention to one ordinary experience?

Choose something available

Sit comfortably or remain standing where it is safe to pause. Notice a sound, the contact of your feet, or another external detail. If ordinary breathing is a comfortable focus, you can notice it without altering it. The object is a starting point, not a requirement to obtain a particular sensation.

Keep the interval short enough to approach willingly. You can stop, change position, or choose another focus. A practice needs to fit the person and setting in which it is attempted.

Notice commentary as commentary

A thought may ask whether the interval is useful. Another may announce that attention has wandered. Include these in the account of what happened. You need not argue each thought into agreement before returning to the chosen detail.

When you discover that attention was elsewhere, there is already something new to observe: the moment you noticed. Describe it before assigning a grade to the session.

Let the experiment create the next question

Afterward, write two lines. The first records a particular observation. The second names a question for another attempt. For example: “The room’s sounds were easier to notice than breathing. Would an external focus fit tomorrow’s interval better?”

This is more useful than a broad verdict such as “I am bad at meditation.” It identifies a condition you can change and an occasion on which you can learn something.

Return to the day

Finish deliberately. Notice the room and the task or person you will meet next. The interval belongs within an ordinary life. Its value can be considered through the attention it supports there, without claiming that a special state has been reached.

Reading context

The selected passages approach understanding through participation and acknowledge unfamiliar inner commentary. Sources: Osho, Dhyan Darshan 01; Osho, Dhyan Darshan 02. The examples, distinctions, and exercises in this article are original applications.

Continue with the book

For a structured 51-day exploration, see Begin Where You Are in the Enlightened Anonymous collection.