We Must Appreciate Meditation Before We Can Teach It
A person can learn the instructions. Sit upright. Notice the breath. Recognize when the mind wanders. Return.
Those instructions are important. But I do not think knowing the instructions alone is enough to make someone a good meditation teacher.
To teach meditation well, we have to appreciate the practice ourselves.
By appreciation, I do not mean that we have to believe meditation is magical or that every meditation session must be peaceful. Quite the opposite. Anyone who has practiced for very long knows that meditation can sometimes be restless, boring, uncomfortable, or frustrating.
Appreciating meditation means understanding its value even when the experience itself is ordinary.
The Teacher’s Relationship With Practice Matters
Students can often tell whether a teacher is simply repeating instructions or speaking from experience.
Someone who has practiced meditation for years has probably encountered many of the same things that trouble a beginner.
The wandering mind.
Restlessness.
Sleepiness.
Doubt.
The feeling that nothing is happening.
The temptation to wonder whether we are “doing it right.”
Those experiences can make us better teachers because we are no longer talking about meditation only as an idea.
We know something about what it is like to actually sit there.
Meditation Is More Than a Technique
One of the dangers in teaching meditation today is that it can become another technique to accomplish something.
Meditate to reduce stress.
Meditate to become more productive.
Meditate to sleep better.
Meditate to improve concentration.
There is nothing necessarily wrong with any of those goals. They may be the very reason someone begins practicing.
But over time we may discover something deeper.
Meditation teaches us how to be present with our own experience.
We begin noticing what the mind does rather than automatically following everything it produces.
We become a little more familiar with ourselves.
And perhaps we become a little less frightened by the ordinary movement of thoughts, feelings, and sensations.
That is difficult to communicate if we ourselves see meditation only as a technique.
We Do Not Have to Idealize Meditation
Appreciation should not become romanticism.
A meditation teacher does not need to present meditation as mysterious, exotic, or spiritually superior.
We do not need to pretend that sitting quietly for ten minutes will transform someone’s life.
In fact, I think appreciating meditation allows us to do the opposite.
We can let meditation be simple.
Sit.
Relax.
Breathe.
Notice.
Return.
There is something quite profound in learning to do those very ordinary things.
What Our Own Practice Teaches Us
One of the ideas I encountered through my study of Chögyam Trungpa’s Meditation in Action was the importance of meditation being something we actually experience rather than merely something we understand intellectually.
That idea has stayed with me.
A teacher’s own practice becomes part of his or her education.
It teaches patience.
It teaches humility.
It teaches us that some days are easier than others.
It teaches us that wandering is not failure.
And it teaches us, again and again, how to begin again.
No certificate can give us all of that.
Training can be extremely valuable. I believe in training, study, and continuing education for meditation teachers.
But those things should support practice rather than replace it.
Students Need More Than Instructions
When someone tells me, “I can’t meditate because I can’t stop thinking,” I can give a technical answer.
I can explain that thoughts naturally arise and that meditation does not require us to stop them.
But something else matters too.
I know what it is like to sit and discover that my own mind has wandered.
I know what it is like to return.
And then wander again.
And return again.
That experience changes the way we explain meditation.
We are no longer correcting the student from above.
We are saying, in effect:
Yes. I know this territory. This is part of the practice.
Appreciation Comes Through Practice
Perhaps this is one reason I believe a meditation teacher should continue being a meditation student.
We keep practicing.
We keep noticing.
We keep learning from the people we teach.
And we continue discovering why this very simple practice is worth sharing with other people.
We do not have to worship meditation.
We do not have to exaggerate what it can do.
But if we are going to teach it, I think we should genuinely appreciate what it offers.
Before we can help someone discover the value of meditation, we should have discovered some of that value for ourselves.
One of my favorite books to refer to as a mediation teacher is “Meditation In Action” by Chogyam Trungpa. In my opinion, Trungpa was probably one of the most important meditation teachers of the twentieth century.
