Sometimes when we meditate it’s like we’re playing the lottery. We sit down, cross our legs, close our eyes, and hope for the best. Sometimes its good. Usually its sleepiness, thoughts from the day, or frustration. “Oh well, we think, maybe I’ll have a better one next time.” But why do high masters have more concentrated meditations more often? Is it because they get lucky more then we do? 

What many of us don’t realize is that meditation is actually a very active process. Its more than just trying our best to focus on the breath and then seeing what happens. We also need to balance ourselves. What does it mean to balance ourselves? Well, in Buddhist there is something called the 5 controlling factors.

The 5 controlling factors are:

Sadha-Faith

Viriya-Effort

Sati-Mindfulness

Samadhi-Concentration

Panna-Wisdom 

When we begin to meditate and we feel drowsy then what do we do? We need to balance that torpor with the factor of effort. Putting in more effort to stay with the object will keep help us alert. However, if we put in too much effort then we become restless. Then we need more mindfulness of our meditation object to keep us concentrated in one place. In the same way, if doubt arises then we need to cultivate more faith in the method, helping us to calm. Throughout this balancing act wisdom begins to arise. We start to see how the mind is working and the process becomes more subtle and you will begin to learn to make the slight balancing shifts in your mental state almost automatically (as long as your intention is to stay with the breath). 

We need to move past this lottery method of chance. We can take back the active control over our meditations to create the right mental conditions for samadhi to arise. 

By Hue Chuyen