Striving

[monkeymind]

Hi

I have been reading a lot on this forum about striving, and how its a bad thing.
I'd like to offer a different view and see what people think. Its something that I've had at the back of my mind for a while.

There's a meditation timer app which 'rewards' its users with a little star when it is used for a certain number of consecutive days. Some people 'strive' for this reward.
Other people embark on the 8-week course, 'striving' to achieve some change in their life.

Mindfulness is really about observing what really is. Its not about looking to the future or the past, not striving for any goal, not about making changes, its just whatever is right now. If we are striving for changes then we are not in the present but trying to be in the future.

But as someone new to meditation, its important first of all to develop a regular habit of meditation in order to cultivate some mindfulness. So isn't it useful in the initial stages if we find some motivation to start that regular practice from a bit of striving?
Doesn't everyone embark on their 8-week course with some change in mind?
Even if we never really achieve enlightenment until we stop striving, can't striving be good motivation, at least initially?
I think it can be good encouragement to establish a regular practice, from which more skilful thinking can grow..so.. Is it right to say that striving is always really so bad?
Just a thought.
Would love to hear what you think.

[piedwagtail91]

personally, i'd disagree because by 'striving' you're forming a habit which at some point will have to be broken, which will only cause difficulty.

don't get me wrong , i can see your point of using at as an incentive, but i just feel that 'some' people could quite easily be swept away and get obsessed with it.
we always encourage people not to strive and not to expect the same result at every meditation, that too can lead to disappointment and disillusionment.
just as i know cyclists who'll do a dozen laps of the block to get their mileage up from 97 miles to 100! it might feel good but in the end does it have real purpose?

[Gareth]

I never did any formal mindfulness training, so I will be interested to hear what others have say.

My own personal opinion is that a bit of striving is OK as long as you know that you are striving. I set up this forum completely through striving, how would anything good ever get done if there were no striving?

Fee and Iwere talking about the meditation app with stars the other day. Getting a reward for meditating doesn't really sit well with the ideals of mindfulness does it? But then again, if it gets people meditating, then that can only be a good thing.

[JonW]

This is such an interesting question and one that has come up quite frequently of late.
I would guess that we all have a different take on it.
This is my take.
I would imagine that most of us are drawn to mindfulness for a particular reason. The main reason I started meditating was because I was suffering from severe depression. So it would be fair to say that I was hoping that meditation would make me less depressed. In that sense I was conscious of striving for a result. But that soon changed.
The more I sat, the more I realised that meditation was helping me to look and feel differently about my life. I realised that most of my life had been spent ruminating about the past or worrying about the future. No surprise really that I suffered from spells of depression.
As I continued to meditate, I realised I was living less in the past and the future. When difficult thoughts or feelings bubbled up, I would acknowledge their presence without getting caught up in them nearly as much. In other words I stopped believing the stories my mind was telling me about myself. More and more I started to respond to things as they are, rather than as I would prefer them to be. I still feel sad about certain things but I don't suffer as I used to. In other words, I've stopped adding layer upon layer of narrative to what I'm feeling. If I'm sad, I'm sad. I don't try to change the way I'm feeling. I just accept it.
There's no striving involved in that. I'm simply letting things be.
To be committed to mindfulness in a whole-hearted way doesn't necessarily mean that one has to strive for anything. One just has to sit regularly and let things be. If we begin striving for results, we're reverting to the habit of wishing things would be different than they are. And we're likely to get caught up in the old ways of thinking.

[FeeHutch]

I never did any formal mindfulness training, so I will be interested to hear what others have say.

My own personal opinion is that a bit of striving is OK as long as you know that you are striving. I set up this forum completely through striving, how would anything good ever get done if there were no striving?

Fee and I were talking about the meditation app with stars the other day. Getting a reward for meditating doesn't really sit well with the ideals of mindfulness does it? But then again, if it gets people meditating, then that can only be a good thing.

Yep we were I used the Insight Timer for a while and found myself meditating more and more to get the next reward rather than simply to meditate. Giving it up in relation to my practice felt very liberating. I agree that there is an element of striving involved in the idea of an 8 week course, at least at the beginning.

In Finding Peace In A Frantic World several myths about mindfulness are dispelled including:

'It will not deaden your mind or prevent you from striving towards important career or lifestyle goals... It is about seeing the world with grater clarity so you can take a wiser and more considered action to change those things which need to be changed. Meditation helps cultivate a deep and compassionate awareness that allows you to assess your goals and find the optimum path towards realising your deepest values.'

I have had to strive to get back on track with my training after being so ill but I have done it mindfully and with an much deeper understanding of what is actually happening/happened/needs to happen rather than seeing it as being 'good' and me being 'bad' if I don't manage it. Does that make sense?

[JonW]

That makes complete sense, Fee.
I'm very fond of the example of the monkey and the bottle.
A nut is placed in a narrow-necked bottle and handed to a monkey. The monkey reaches into the bottle and grabs the fruit only to find that it's unable to remove its hand from the bottle. The monkey is trapped by his own action, his own desire.
Often the solution to being trapped is to recognise that we're not really trapped at all.

[Vixine]

I have been really confused by this one too, and it recently clicked for me personally - how I can look at my mindfulness practice without that strong sense of striving for something. I think there is a difference between having a reason for doing something, and striving. Striving seems to have a sense of intensity to it, and almost a greedy feeling (at least for me) like: I want to get this benefit or outcome for myself and then have some kind of possession of it. Maybe it's just a matter of semantics, or a matter of degree and we are kind of all saying the same thing.

[JonW]

"I think there is a difference between having a reason for doing something, and striving."

That's it, precisely.

[Brad]

"I think there is a difference between having a reason for doing something, and striving."

That's it, precisely.

I'd be interested in hearing people elaborating on this point, because I don't quite understand the difference.

The one point I wanted to add, since this is the Beginning the Practice forum, is that in my experience it can be detrimental to consider topics like striving too early in your mindfulness practice. For me, concepts like striving and non-attachment ended up overwhelming me and derailing my basic meditation practice when I first began. I would suggest people that are new to meditation be okay with not coming to terms with any questions they may have about this yet.

[JonW]

Hi Brad.
I think the reason why the subject of "striving" has come up on the "beginner" thread is that some of our members, new to mindfulness, are having issues with striving and it's making them question whether mindfulness is for them.
"I think there is a difference between having a reason for doing something, and striving."
Admittedly this is difficult to articulate. The best I can answer it is that I like to meditate. That's my reason for doing it. I'm aware that it's bringing me benefits. But I don't meditate with those benefits in mind. For me, it's also about approaching something with a full heart, without questioning myself too much about why I'm doing it.
"Striving", to me, also implies judging oneself on whether meditation has been "good" (relaxing etc.) or "bad" (challenging). It just is. If I'm feeling very distracted and fidgety, I'll be mindful of that. In other words, my distractedness becomes part of the practice.