Tag: expectation

Meditation – Expectations

I have written a number of posts on meditation including Meditation Experiences Uno, Meditation Experiences Dos, Meditation Experiences Tres, and Meditation Experiences Cuatro. All of these were my personal experiences of meditation and to some degree outlining the benefits that you might be able to experience yourself. Of course your experience during meditation and afterwards may vary. One of the things that happens when you start meditating on a regular basis is that you may begin to develop expectations. These expectations of a special experience or some sudden break through, maybe even enlightenment may cause you to view your practice as a tool or some means to and end.

In the tradition of Zen Buddhism having some grand expectation for each meditation session is frowned upon. You should just sit in Zazen, expecting nothing, with your focus on being present. In a world that is dominated by activity, doing things, getting shit done; this might be very difficult for us. We typically spend most of our time thinking about what we are going to do in the future, that we often cannot make ourselves present in the now. If everything you do in your life must be in support of some goal or to satisfy some desire, meditating will seem foreign and you will struggle to be present even for a few moments, though you sat for 20 minutes. You may even feel that why should I devote 10 or 20 minutes just sitting, when I could be doing something productive. What the hell have we become?

There is a quote from Gary John Bishop that anyone that meditates should take to heart. While the book Mr. Bishop wrote Unfu*k Yourself isn’t about meditation, it will make you think about how you are fucking up your life with thoughts of the past and future.

Let me wrap this up. If you really want to change the way you think about this world, you will need to drop all these expectations and stop living in the future or even worse in the past. A consistent meditation practice will help you live in the present and change some these preconceived notions you have established over your lifetime. In a sense there is a war to be waged. There is the real you, a person with inherent Buddha nature and there is you that has been constructed over a lifetime. Choose the present moment without expectations or continue living imprisoned in the future, it’s all your choice.

Namaste

I have another blog where I review some pretty interesting books, check it out.

Inspirational Book Reviews

Living without expectations

Random Thoughts / Poetry

Living without expectations

I diligently followed my expectations

Things didn’t turn out the way I thought they would, leaving me disappointed and unfulfilled

I set a new goal and the pattern repeated itself leading to more disappointment

I decided to try again but without any expectations

I let things unfold as they will

No expectations, no disappointment

Learning to live without expectations

Namaste

 

If you would like to support this blog, check out the awesome selection of eBooks at:

Mind, Body, Spirit books at eBooks.com

If eBooks aren’t your thing, check out my Resources page for additional ways to support this blog.

Visit my other blog Inspirational Book Reviews where I review some incredible literature.

 

Embrace acceptance

We wake up every day, and most of us start out the day with some expectations. We might think this will be an easy day, I have time for some of my hobbies, and 10 minutes later you log in at work and fuck the world is coming to an end and you are asked to address a whole bunch of shit that you had not expected. You become upset, not so much that all this shit was thrust upon your plate, but because you expected a different kind of day. You had a plan or expectation for your day, and it got thrown out the window.

Welcome to reality! Not the stupid planned reality created by your expectations, but the kick you in the ass reality called life. Ouch! As I have observed the most painful periods in my life, they are painful because I expected one thing and life said so what and providing something else. Of course, now I’m pissed off because things didn’t go the way I expected, and not only am I angry, I become negative as hell and start acting like an asshole.

Consider that expectations are either in the present or in the future. I think planning is a good thing, but having an expectation that I will execute all the tasks or adhere to a timeline called out in the plan is where the problems begin. The world and other people don’t care about your plan, so accept you have much less control over what will transpire each day than you might think. Go in with a plan and adapt as needed without all your expectations weighing you down. Well, you might say well shouldn’t I expect good things to happen for me today? My advice is that it would be nice, but if you do and things turn out differently you end up crushed because life didn’t meet your expectations.

All you can do is stay present, drop the stupid expectations, and start accepting what life throws at you. I’m not going to take on the Law of Attraction movement, which I have written about before and have some belief in, but much of it is predicated on you believing (expecting) something to come into being in your life and that will cause the Universe to make it happen. Life, on the other hand, will provide plenty of chaos and contrary results that provide disappointment after disappointment if you keep expecting a certain outcome. Choose to dream, have a vision, and be positive, but stay away from expecting too much on a daily basis.

I am going to try and accept what happens to me today, without expectations.

Namaste

 

If you would like to support this blog, check out the awesome selection of eBooks at:

Mind, Body, Spirit books at eBooks.com

If eBooks aren’t your thing, check out my Resources page for additional ways to support this blog.

Visit my other blog Inspirational Book Reviews where I review some incredible literature.

The Current Expectation

The Happiness Movement

There is a movement in recent times that sets an expectation that we can live a life filled with happiness. Gretchen Rubin wrote a book a few years back called the “Happiness Project” where she expounds on a number of ways to increase your level of happiness. We are constantly subjected to a barrage of advertising that shows us how happy people are with that new car, drinking beer at the beach, or taking expensive vacations to Caribbean. All of these things advocate living a lifestyle that will make us happy forever more. There is a high expectation that if you just buy this, learn this, or do this activity happiness will follow.

corona beach

Unfortunately a consistent state of happiness is probably an illusion, and thinking that it is achievable may be somewhat dangerous to enjoying life. What I mean by this is that you are setting an expectation that is not achievable and this will actually cause you to think something is wrong with you if you are not in a constant state of bliss.

Each of us face so many challenges in our life such as health issues, family strife, making a living, and the list goes on and on. Do you really expect that you will feel happy during what are often very negative events that occur? You need to give yourself the opportunity to feel angry, sad, frustrated, inpatient, as these events unfold. That doesn’t mean you wallow in your pain and conduct a lifelong pity party, but allow yourself some time to express your feelings.

“Life is not a big long beer commercial, much of living is also filled with struggle and challenging situations”.

While it is true you can emerge from a painful situation, stronger and wiser, you may even learn something from it, but you will not be in some state of continuous euphoria.

Instead of expecting a life filled with happiness whatever that really means, be realistic and expect that your emotions will rise and fall like the tide. I really like listening to speakers like Les Brown, Tony Robbins, Bob Proctor, Esther Hicks, Mel Robbins, and Jim Rohn; these people are very motivating and can give you some great tips for being more successful and effective in life. Things like the Law of Attraction and the 5 second rule are great tools for enhancing your life, but like any tool it will have its limitations. Most of the time I hover somewhere in between happiness and sadness, somewhere in the middle, not overcome by either emotion.

My parting advice would be:

  • Feel Happy
  • Feel Sad
  • Feel Angry
  • Feel Pain
  • Feel Frustrated
  • Feel Love
  • Live in the Moment

Just don’t fall into the trap that your life should be one where you are in some heightened state of happiness all the time.

Root of Our Suffering

A certain amount of our life is dealing with pain, it happens to all of us, and we can avoid the suffering associated with it, but it is a difficult thing to do. I like the quote below because it resonates with me. I make no claims to have eliminated all attachment in my life, but I agree it is often the source of suffering.

Root of suffering

Namaste