Sit Without Hope
I had a meditation teacher once who instructed us, her students, to
“Sit without hope, sit without fear.”
At the time, I couldn’t understand what she meant. But today, remembering, I think she was trying to get us to embrace meditation as a practice.
In other words, she wanted us to see meditation as an enterprise that we engaged in without attachment—positive or negative—to an outcome.
Don’t sit because you’re hoping to achieve enlightenment.
Don’t sit because you’re trying to get past your personal pain or grief or remorse.
Don’t sit to heal your emotional wounds.
Don’t sit for peace or love or Cosmic Consciousness.
Just sit.
Likewise, don’t be afraid to go deep.
Don’t be afraid to let go.
Don’t be afraid that you’ll go too far or turn a corner into some weird space that you can’t get out of.
Just sit.
This is the goal of a practice in anything.
The post Sit Without Hope first appeared on Steven Pressfield.“Sit without hope, sit without fear.”
