Remembering Is the Hard Part

When sitting in meditation, just think of all the wholesome qualities you’re cultivating. You’re certainly developing the capacity to be conscious of inner movement. And when sitting is difficult, you’re learning to acknowledge that you don’t want to be there.

Whatever’s going on, you’re fostering this lovely strength to be awake to the experience of the meditation session. This doesn’t mean that you’re judging the quality of the sitting based on whether you have strong samādhi (concentration) or no samādhi. Rather, there’s just this quality of being fully conscious to whatever is presenting itself during the meditation period.

That full awareness of whatever is arising in our inner world is what we want to extend into daily life. But remembering to do this is the hard part.

This reflection by Ajahn Viradhammo is from the book The Contemplative’s Craft, (pdf) p. 70.