This story will help you remember to be a little easier on yourself

There’s an old Tibetan story that shows that the benefits of meditation, while they can change your life, are extremely subtle.

After taking his initial vows to live a monastic life, the 11th century monk Atīśa felt as though his life was perfect. “I have not been stained by the smallest fault,” he said. But after taking further vows to help others reach enlightenment, he admitted that he had committed “one or two errors.” Finally, having taken up what is known as the Secret Mantra Vajrayana, the highest stage of Tibetan Buddhism, he acknowledged, “Even though I have sometimes stumbled, still, I have let neither faults nor downfalls remain with me for as much as a whole day.”

Even if we aren’t taking vows, we can learn from Atīśa’s path of coming to terms with his mistakes. When we first begin meditating regularly, many of us are turned off when what seems to have been working inevitably begins to fail. We worry when the clarity and calm fades away an hour or two after we finish a session, blaming ourselves for not sitting correctly or long enough. If our blame gets heavy enough, we might give up altogether.

But the point of meditation isn’t to experience pure concentration or bliss. It’s to notice more often than you did the day before that you’re not present, that you’re caught up in a story line, that you’ve been triggered. It’s to be caught up in emotions less often and for less time.

I’ve been meditating every day for over four years now, and if I’m being honest, I’m still the same person. I’m prone to being self-conscious, anxious, controlling — in a word: neurotic. But the difference is, when I feel those feelings, I also feel a little bit more space to operate — I feel like there’s a bit more choice in how I act.

Don’t meditate to become emotionless and detached from the world. First, that’s impossible, and aiming for it will hurt others, known as “spiritual bypassing.” But Atīśa’s story shows that no matter how much we practice, we’re bound to get swept away by the ups and downs of life, we’re bound to get sick, be fired, or lose someone we love, and we’re bound to make mistakes. Meditation helps us recover a little quicker, that’s all, which is a huge difference.

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