It is only natural to ask such a question whenever we take on a new endeavor that involves progressing along a learning curve. Of course, we want to check and see if we are doing it correctly, whatever the “it” is, and what the signposts and benchmarks are along the way to let us know that indeed, we are making headway, not stewing in some backwater, or circling endlessly in some Sargasso Sea of the mind, that we are making progress, that we are getting somewhere and a desirable somewhere at that, at the very least that we are becoming more loving, more kind, more calm, more mindful, more heartful. And of course, we also want assurance and reassurance along the way that what we are feeling is what we are supposed to be feeling, that what is happening is what is supposed to be happening, that it is “normal,” and not a sign of being incompetent or of heading in the wrong direction and perhaps unwittingly picking up a string of bad habits along the way.
Looking at meditation instrumentally (see Meditation Is Not What You Think, “Two Ways to Think about Meditation”), as a skill that develops as you work at it, wanting to know whether you are doing it right makes a lot of sense. And indeed there are benchmarks along the way, such as a greater sense of stability and calmness in your attention, an ability to sit longer and be more comfortable in your body, deeper insight and equanimity in the face of whatever might arise, a growing ability to meet whatever is arising in the field of awareness at the point of contact, and seeing the humor in how much we take everything so seriously, especially around our own particular identifications and attachments. You may even find yourself spontaneously experiencing feelings of lovingkindness, compassion, and joy in the good fortune of others.
Also, you may discover in yourself a desire and enthusiasm to practice more, a willingness to look more clearly and compassionately into places you habitually don’t want to look at all, and perhaps more aware of how your states of mind affect other people as well as yourself. You may find yourself appreciating the spell and texture of the sensory world to a greater and greater degree. You may find yourself spontaneously more embodied, more in touch with your skin, with the carriage of the body, with a sense of the body as a whole breathing.
All these and many more benchmarks are available to you, and will be recognized if you just keep practicing, whether you like it or not, whether you feel like it or not, if you make the cultivation of mindfulness a lifetime’s challenge and a lifetime’s commitment. If you have the good fortune to work with a good teacher, that can be very helpful in terms of getting feedback about whether or not you are “doing it right,” and for validating your experiences or making suggestions for ways to work with the myriad experiences that inevitably arise in the course of both living and practicing mindfulness.
But that said, there is another answer to the question, “Am I doing it right?” when it emerges in your mind and generates worry or doubt or confusion. And that answer comes from the non-instrumental nature of the meditation practice, the way in which meditation is not about getting anywhere else but simply being where you already are and knowing it. From this perspective, if you are resting in awareness, you are doing it right, no matter what you are experiencing, whether it is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. If you are bored and are aware of it, you are doing it right. If you are frightened and are aware of it, you are doing it right. If you are confused and know it, you are doing it right.
If you are depressed and know it, you are doing it right. If your thoughts never shut down and there is an awareness of that in the present moment, and you can, even for a moment be the knowing rather than being carried away in the agitation, then you are doing it right. And if you are indeed carried away by the agitation and the proliferations and fabrications and cascading of the thinking mind and there is an awareness of that, and you can be that knowing in that moment, then you are doing it right.
In fact, as long as you are being kind to yourself and not forcing anything, there is nothing that you could do or that could happen to you that cannot be a worthy part of the practice, if you are aware of it and can give yourself over to trusting and resting in awareness itself rather than be caught up perpetually in the turmoil, the agitation, the clinging, the wanting, and the rejecting of whatever is arising.
Of course, dukkha and delusion can become seriously compounded in any moment if, in losing awareness, you become caught up in unskillful and unhealthy actions or reactions that may flow out of your discomfort, your fear, or other afflictive mind states if you fall into identifying strongly with them without any awareness of it. When awareness gets obscured, clouded over, it is in just such moments that we might lose touch, even lose our minds, forget who we are in our fullness, and create impediments to our own well-being, to say nothing of possibly harming others, sometimes in the most egregious of ways. Even in such circumstances, however, awareness is always available! The practice never is not applicable. But it is much more skillful if we can gradually learn to recognize those arisings in the mind and in our actions that are potentially destructive and harmful and embrace them fully in awareness in the present moment, resolving to let that moment be a new beginning, a new opportunity to choose to restrain ourselves from harmful and destructive actions, to stand firm in that which we are.
Your awareness is a very big space within which to reside. It is never not an ally, a friend, a sanctuary, a refuge. And it is never not here, only sometimes veiled. But knowing it is subtle. The realm of awareness requires visiting many times, if ever so briefly, as you cultivate greater intimacy with it. Then, as we have seen, anything and everything that arises in life becomes “the curriculum,” however unwanted or unpleasant. If you allow awareness to embrace your doubt, your unhappiness, your confusion, your anxiety, your pain, these mind states cease being “yours.” They revert to being recognized as merely “weather patterns” in the mind and body. That dimension of “you” that already knows that you are doubting, unhappy, confused, anxious, in pain, resentful, even cruel at times, is not any of those things, and is already okay, already whole. It will never not be what and who you actually are at the most fundamental level. So if you remember non-judgmental awareness in the present moment as an option and learn to trust it, if you learn to inhabit the spaciousness of your own awareness or at least visit from time to time, then not only are you “doing it right” but there is actually no doing involved and never was, and nobody to do it. Mindfulness is not about doing, and never was. It is about being—and being awake, being the knowing, including the knowing of not knowing. Are they different?
Let’s sit with that one for a moment.