Meditation...external and internal worlds

When we go about our daily living, we try to find some exciting things to do, some fun parties somewhere during weekends, and memorable experiences when we visit foreign countries and talk to people who have been through certain amusements. When we go to work, we want progress, progress and more progress.

When we meditate, we also naturally want to experience something mystical. And sometimes we do experience something we have never experienced before, and we want more of it. That creates goals and expectations. If we read about certain attainments and stages of samadhi, we want to experience them. That also create goals and expectations in meditation.

Experiences both inside and outside of the mind are the same. They share the same characteristics - anicca, dukkha, anatta. So we can look at the external world in the same way as internal world, as the world of samsara. And do so objectively.

We are conditioned to create goals and expectations, and want to experience "wow" feelings both externally and internally. We carry our expectations that we normally have of the external world into our meditation practice. So it's difficult to be totally relaxed about it, and have no expectation when we start learning to meditate. That is normal. But as time goes by, we should find that in order to calm the mind, we simply ....sit. If we go on to vipassana, we simply observe and investigate. That's all.