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Why Aren't You Making Meditation Progress?

A question people often ask is, "Why is it that I'm not making progress in meditation?"

Let's first rule out some obvious factors...

If you don't know how to practice correctly -- which means recognizing that mindfulness of emptiness is the core principle of practice at each and every step of the way. In short, you have to learn how to let go and realize some degree of emptiness. It's not about spinning the chi or opening chakras or anything like that?

If you don't practice enough -- with enough diligence in terms of both length of time and intensity, you won't get far either. Sitting for 15 minutes at a time is a good start, but you need to meditate longer than that for progress. Meditating for just a few days and demanding enlightenment is highly unreasonable as well.

If you lack sexual discipline and lose your jing, you won't get very far either. "No water in the boiler means no steam in the pipes," and thus no chi to carry out the physical-spiritual transformations necessary for laying the foundation of the path.

Those are just a few things you should check. But the big thing to realize is that our desires for material things are just too strong nowadays. In olden times peoples' minds were more simple and pure, so it was easy for them to realize dhyana or even enlightenment in a matter of days. Today we are just too complicated.

So how do you remedy these things?

Learn how to practice. You can read this site for pointers.

Set up a practice schedule and stick to it. "Practice makes perfect" is true 100%.

Learn a bit of sexual discipline...every bit helps.

But most of all learn detachment and how to let go.