The Light That Stays

13. The Traps (What to Watch Out For)

Meditation is simple, but there are a few potholes in the road. Knowing about them ahead of time means you won’t fall in.

Trap 1: Waiting for fireworks. You might sit and sit and feel… nothing special. Then you decide you’re “bad at it” and quit. But meditation isn’t supposed to feel like fireworks — and that includes hunting for a special glow, a buzz, or some inner light to “see.” If a vision or a light ever does show up, it’s just more scenery drifting past the window, not the destination. Most days are quiet and ordinary, and the ordinary days are still working on you, like exercise you can’t feel building muscle. Don’t judge a session by how exciting it was.

Trap 2: Thinking you have to empty your mind. This is the biggest myth. You will never have zero thoughts, and that’s fine. The practice is not “no thoughts.” The practice is noticing the thoughts — being the watcher. Every time you notice you got lost in thinking and you come back, that’s not failing at meditation. That’s the whole exercise. The coming-back is the rep.

Trap 3: Using it to run away. Meditation should help you face your feelings, not hide from them. If you ever notice you’re “going calm” just to avoid dealing with something real — a problem with a friend, a feeling you don’t want to feel — gently turn back toward the real thing. Calm is not for hiding.

Trap 4: Getting proud about it. Some people start to feel superior because they meditate — like they’re more enlightened than everyone else. That’s backwards. If meditation is making you look down on people, you’ve taken a wrong turn. The whole point (Chapter 4) is the opposite: the same light is in everyone underneath.

Trap 5: Forcing it. You can’t grab calm by squeezing harder. Trying too hard makes you tense, which is the opposite of the goal. Hold it lightly, like a small bird in your hands — firm enough not to drop it, gentle enough not to crush it. And if a session ever starts to feel like genuinely too much — strong emotions surfacing, a sense of being flooded — that’s another kind of forcing, the kind where you push past what’s healthy. Stop. Open your eyes, get up, turn toward something engaged with the world (see Chapter 7 for what to do, and Chapter 4 for what kinds of things help). The cushion will still be there tomorrow.

Trap 6: Worshipping the symbols. This is a subtle one, and it matters to me. Beautiful statues, special cushions, fancy words, even teachers — all of it can be helpful. But none of it is the thing itself. Remember Chapter 6: anything you can see or hold is just a symbol, and symbols can be set down. If you ever catch yourself thinking the object is the magic — the special bead, the perfect playlist, the right outfit — gently let it go. The light was never in the object. It was always in you, the one who’s seeing.

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