Have you noticed any times of wanting and expectation in your meditation—wanting some new, imagined pleasurable experience to be happening, or a present one to remain, or an old one to return? The danger here is that expectation, the wanting itself, inevitably brings agitation. What makes this particular danger so seductive is that it often comes disguised as dharma aspiration. But these are two very different mind states. Aspirations inspire us, while expectations simply lead us into cycles of hope and fear: hope that what we want will happen; fear that it won’t.
