How Do I Know If I'm Becoming a Better Meditator? Signs of Progress with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

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What are the signs of progressing in meditation practice?

Normally, the sign is that you become more flexible, more open, and a little bit peaceful.

But that sort of peaceful does not mean “happy ha-ha,” like that.

Like when you drink coffee and feel a high, “Hoo-hoo!”

That kind of thing will not last long.

20 minutes later, you become low.

It is not that kind of happiness.

It is a little difficult to explain.

What we call “suffering” means dissatisfaction or hollowness, or feeling incomplete, insecure, sad, or lonely.

At a deeper level, we feel there is something missing.

When we meditate, that hollowness slowly begins to be filled.

When the hollowness is filled, at the beginning, there is not a big “Ha!

Happy!” It is not like that, but more like contentment.

Why is that filled?

Because when we connect with awareness, we are connecting with our innate qualities.

The more we connect with our innate qualities, like awareness, love and compassion, and wisdom, at a deeper level we feel like we are coming home.

We feel like we are back to who we are.

That is what we call “happiness” here.

So, that is the sign.

You may not suddenly become super high, but it is more that you develop contentment and joy. It is quite subtle.

and joy. It is quite subtle.

Once you have that, then the ups and downs of life — though you will still feel pain and suffer and worry — do not have as big an impact as before.

Especially when you have obstacles or problems, you are more resilient.

Sometimes you might be surprised: “In the past if I had this problem, I might have become crazy.”

But now, of course, you still feel sad and unhappy, but not that much.

Sometimes you might surprise yourself.

That is a general sign of meditative progress.

Of course, sometimes at the beginning, another sign is that it looks like your mind is getting worse.

Remember? When you meditate, the mind getting worse is a good sign.

But that getting worse does not last very long — it will go away.

Eventually, you become more kind and compassionate, and you see things more clearly, closer to reality.

Normally, we have a lot of prejudgments and preconceptions, and through meditation, these things lessen.

And sometimes, people expect to gain supernatural power.

Like, “If I meditate, I may have special telepathic clairvoyance and miracles.”

These are not important at all, actually.

Even if you have clairvoyance or supernatural powers, suffering will follow you.

If you can fly, suffering will follow you, like a shadow.

When a bird flies, its shadow flies with it.

And nowadays, everybody can fly, right?

If you have money, you can buy a flight ticket, and you can fly.

And suffering also follows.

These things are not important; don’t look for those.

Especially in our tradition, even if we might experience those things, we do not discuss them in public.

We do not show off.

You can talk with your colleagues and discuss it with your teacher, but not in public.

Humbleness is very important.

There are normally 2 meditation techniques: shamatha and vipashyana.

Shamatha means “calm abiding meditation.”

We are basically learning how to be.

We are not analyzing — it is the being mind.

And vipashyana begins with analysis to see the nature of reality.

So, we have two kinds of meditation.

If you practice only calm abiding without insight, without exploring the nature of reality, there are three stages: (1) First, the waterfall experience, with a lot of ups and downs.

(2) Then it becomes a riverlike experience.

meaning it is easy to meditate — you can access it anytime.

Even when there are ups and downs, it does not really matter.

You have already found that something continues.

You find your inner safe place.

Like a river continuing, it is still moving with ups and downs but it continues.

In the end, (3) it is like a lake without waves — then there is recognition of awareness all the time, a long time.

If you begin to explore the nature of reality, you will not achieve the last stage, because when you explore the nature of reality, you use analytical meditation.

Then the being mind that holds onto concepts is gone — you see the true nature, reality.

As for the signs of vipashyana, or insight meditation — vipashyana means seeing the nature of reality — there are also 3 stages.

First, there is learning about the moon from books.

Whether you are learning about impermanence, or emptiness, at first it is like learning this from a book.

It is like looking at a painting of the moon, and reading descriptions of the moon.

It is not the real moon, but still you can learn a lot about the moon from a book, right?

So, there are a lot of ideas, images, and articulation.

When you practice again and again, then you get to a deeper feeling.

You get familiar with the meaning, and realization begins to develop.

There is still a lot of flavor then.

The flavor becomes more. “Aha!”

There are lots of “Aha” moments.

“Wow! Hoo . . .” It is like that.

It is as if one day you go out and look at the water, and you see the moon’s reflection in the water.

The moon’s reflection is much better than the painted moon, but it is still not the real moon yet.

This is the experiential level, what we call “experiential.”

There is a lot of flavor.

If you practice again, again, one day you will have direct realization.

The words, images, and flavors are all gone.

You will have direct realization, which means you do not just understand impermanence or emptiness, and you do not have the flavor of emptiness and impermanence.

It is almost like you become one with them.

You become impermanence, you become emptiness.

You see emptiness, you hear emptiness, you smell emptiness.

It is not just at the intellectual or emotional level, but it comes to the perceptual level, to the senses.

It is as if one day you go out and look up, and you see the tiny crescent moon.

That moon is much better than the reflection, because the reflection is not the real moon, but that is the real moon, though it is tiny.

Then, if you continue to practice, you still get lost again, but you continue to practice.

If direct realization is present 24 hours a day, then you are fully free.

You are enlightened.

It takes some time. Be patient.

These are the stages and signs of meditation.