Craving as an obstacle to any meditation and contemplation. Check this first!

 Craving as an obstacle to meditation and contemplation

 Insight:

 Many people approach their meditation or contemplation practice by completing a set of steps or a 'method' that they use to come into pleasant or beneficial mind states.

One thing that is hardly ever, if ever, discussed by these methods and teachers delivering these methods is the fact that CRAVING is often present for the person attempting to practice a method or set of instructions for meditation.

Now, with craving present, it may still be possible to follow a method or set of instructions and bring about a pleasant, calm abiding. But this will only be temporary, and last for a set period of time. This is why it is difficult for many people to sit in meditation for long periods of time without any sense of effort of tension.

Craving in the background, for a result, for existence, for pleasant feeling tone, and for anything not present, especially sensual-related pleasure, will become an obstacle for progress in meditation.

Sometimes, the best thing that one can do prior to sitting, or even during sitting in meditation, is to actually check and verify whether the presence of craving is there in the mind or not!

If craving is present, this MUST be acknowledge first, and allowed to be seen and felt in the mind and body. A whole meditation session may just consist of this point alone. Any futher instruction or method or step should be abandoned at that point and just the presence of craving noted and allowed to come to the foreground.

If this is done correctly (ie right attention), then this can be termed 'right effort' and 'right mindfulness', since this is likely the only beneficial and skillful action that can be performed without skipping over craving, which always entails some level of suffering in the moment.

So do check for the presence of craving when sitting, and become very familiar with the feeling and presence of craving, and therefore suffering, before attempting to gloss over this with any feel-good method or technique in meditation (such as metta, breath awareness, body awareness etc.)

Peace.