Usually when I sit in meditation I do nothing. I assume a conscious posture and simply observe what’s happening; maybe the mind is all over the place thinking about the liquorice I had the other night at somebody’s house, or about how it’s a pity the sun has gone in, or about how I will be in Beijing this time next week, or about how the monks at Harnham sent an e-mail asking whether they should use gloss paint for the doors in the monastery kitchen, and so on. Such thoughts might be going through my mind; they’re nonsense, but I do nothing with them. Absolutely nothing, until I start to feel a little bit uncomfortable, and then I watch to see where that discomfort is coming from. It is always coming from the same place: ‘I shouldn’t be this way. I should be ... My mind should be clear, I shouldn’t be ...’ Once this movement is identified, a settling occurs. When we identify that which takes us away from our natural feeling of centredness, we come home. This is not the same kind of effort one would be making in goal-seeking practice.
Ajahn Munindo "Unexpected Freedom"
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