Navigating paradox: meditation can and should have goals

Meditation teachers often make confusing statements about the goals of meditation. You may hear things like:

• “There is no goal”

• “You don’t want to do anything”

• “A common mistake in meditation is thinking you want to change something”

Sometimes these statements go even further, suggesting not only is there no goal, but there’s no such thing as improvement.

• “Don’t try to improve anything. Meditation is not about changing your state.”

• “You can’t get better at meditation the way you can prepare for a music rehearsal.”

At Jhourney we couldn’t disagree more with these statements. There is always a goal to meditation.

At some level, everyone knows these statements are false, or they wouldn’t meditate. Whether you want to relax, seek Enlightenment, or just curiously follow your breath for a moment, there’s no denying that you’re pursuing a goal.

So why do so many teachers and practitioners make statements like this? It turns out that, due to an unusual quality of meditation, these statements are not true but they are useful.

In many ways, meditation is the process of learning to spot and release mental tension. Whether we realize it or not, this is a life skill we’re all familiar with. But we have little language for it, and so often don’t practice deliberately.

It’s the faster-than-thought mental move you make when you open yourself up to the possibility of changing your mind. Or the moment when you apologize to a loved one and mean it. Or the shift you make that allows you to be filled with awe and wonder while out hiking, as opposed to ruminating on the day’s events.

This release of mental tension is essential for learning and collaborating, and is intricately tied to our happiness. 

It’s also tied to goal-setting.

Twitter meditation poster Romeo Stevens uses a metaphor: like hydroelectric dams, the creation of mental tension in the nervous system powers action until the tension is released. In day-to-day life, this is usually because we’ve met our goal. Or we may learn something new and automatically change the goal, releasing one dam and setting up another.

“Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.” – Naval Ravikant

With meditation, we begin to sense the constructions of these hydroelectric dams in our nervous system almost mechanistically. Another Twitter influencer, Nick Cammarata, describes mental tension as a “fast, grabby thing” that leads to an “evil vibrating blob.” It’s as if prior contracts we made with ourselves to be happy have a physical-emotional manifestation in the nervous system, causing suffering until we get what we want.

Meditating to recognize these dams in our nervous system makes possible a third way of engaging with them. Rather than relying on goal completion or new information, we can learn to decide for ourselves if we want to keep that dam in place, and just release it directly.

“I like to stay aware of [desire], because then I can choose my desires very carefully. I try not to have more than one big desire in my life at any given time, and I also recognize it as the axis of my suffering. I realize the area where I’ve chosen to be unhappy.” – Naval Ravikant

The tight relationship between mental tension and goals is why meditation teachers say “there is no goal.” Ironically, they’re attempting to support you in the true goal of meditation: the release of mental tension. 

At Jhourney, we take a different approach. We prefer to distinguish explicitly between what’s true and what’s useful, and why. But we couldn’t agree more with their intent.

It’s hard to overstate the value of spotting and releasing mental tension. It gives you 10x better information for navigating your own nervous system, setting and releasing the contracts you make with yourself responsible for driving (often subconscious) behavior. If you’re a high performer chasing a big dream, or just an earnest person looking to be a little happier, what could be more important?

When done skillfully, you can use this to enter peak states people frequently describe as MDMA without the drug, or as some have reported, process extremely difficult memories.

Now that’s a goal worth meditating for.