Normally, there are three types of positive experiences: clarity, joy, and non-conceptuality. These are the three categories. When you have these positive experiences, what do you have to do? There are two things that are important: One, do not be attached to it. Secondly, appreciate it.
When I learned meditation for the first time my father said:
“Do not be attached to meditation experience.”
Then I really tried to think about not being attached to my meditation experience. I was thinking about that a lot. When I meditated, as soon as I had some good meditation experience I got worried. “Am I being attached? Oh. I am attached now. I should not be attached! What should I do?” There was so much worrying. Then I asked my father, “You said when meditating there are meditation experiences. When there are good meditation experiences I should not be attached but I cannot help being attached. It seems like there is always attachment around my meditation.” I asked my father this, and my father said, “What is your attachment?” I told my father about my attachments and my father explained to me that there is a difference between appreciation and attachment. At that time, I was confused about being attached to my meditation and appreciating my meditation. When you have good meditation experiences you can appreciate it, that is not a problem. You can have gratitude towards your good meditation experience, appreciate your good meditation experience, this is very important, but do not be attached to it.
What is the difference between attachment and appreciation? Attachment has two things: being related to permanence and being related to singularity. The meaning of permanence is that when you have this wonderful experience, you want to have the same experience again and again, and you might think, “From now on, it will be like this forever.” That is wrong expectations. That is what we call, “Attachment to permanence.”
Sometimes when I meditated, especially when I got new meditation experiences, I felt so happy. At that time I thought, “I think this is not just an experience, this is realization!” Because normally I was looking for realization. Then I heard a lot about the qualities of realization;
“Realization is like space.
Meditation experiences are like clouds.
Once you get realization it is never lost.”
Of course it is never lost, but realization does not have a “taste.” Meditation experience has a taste. The meaning of “taste” is that when you are meditating you feel so happy, like, “Mmm… Aha! Oho!” (Mingyur Rinpoche pretends to be blissful.) That is the experience. Realization is that you become like that. There is no taste. You become the taste, maybe. (Mingyur Rinpoche laughs.)
Anyway, in the beginning, we will have experiences. Experiences are good. There is nothing wrong about having experiences, whether that are good experiences or bad experiences, both are good, actually. Especially for realization, bad experiences are very good. Good experiences are good for inspiration, it is good for feeling appreciation and gratitude. But there is a danger also. The danger is that you might become attached to that good experience. Bad experiences are very good for developing realization, especially detachment. But with some people, we do not know if the bad experiences are similar to the good ones. We may get stuck in the bad experiences as well. We think, “There is something wrong with me. I am bad.” Especially, you might think that bad experiences are a problem to meditation, but they are actually not. Bad experiences are the result of meditation, it is the sign of meditation. It is what we call, “waterfall experience.” Therefore, there are plus and minus to both, but you have to know how to deal with that.
With good experiences, do not be attached. The attachment to permanence means that you think, “It will be like this forever. From now on, I will have no problem with my monkey mind.” This is wrong. Do not be attached.
Attachment has two things. One is permanence which is finished, and the second one is attachment related to singularity. Singularity means, “This is the best!” Some people think, “I will be enlightened tomorrow! I think I have achieved a high level of enlightenment. If I share this with my teacher tomorrow, my teacher will be really happy and give me a special promotion (Mingyur Rinpoche laughs.) I am just kidding about the promotion, but you might think, “I am enlightened. I am the best. I am number one. No-one else knows about this wonderful experience.” This is the meaning of singularity. Do not think that this is enlightenment. Do not think that this is realization. It is not realization. It is not enlightenment. It is just an experience. But having this experience is really good. It is good for you in order to develop appreciation.
Normally, we say, “Experience is the sign of realization.” We have an example of this: In the morning, before the sunrise, before the real sun comes out, a light comes, sunlight. Everything becomes bright and slowly everything gets a maroon sort of color. The light is not the sun but it is the sign that the sun is coming. Similarly, experience is the sign of realization. Therefore, before realization, we will have these experiences.
How do we deal with these experiences? One important technique is to not be attached to it. What is the meaning of not being attached to it? Think that, “This is an experience. Who knows, tomorrow it might be completely gone? It is impermanent. It is not enlightenment. But it is the sign of meditation.” You can appreciate this. “How nice! I have this wonderful experience.” Feel gratitude. Then, these good experiences will become the cause to achieve direct realization in the future. Eventually, you will have a realization that is free from experience. Eventually, you will reach that state.