Practicing insight meditation develops mindful awareness of one’s own bodily and mental processes and a strong, precise mental clarity. Meditation is not the goal, but a vehicle that enables wisdom to arise.
Meditators are often discouraged during the early stages of practice when they realize they are experiencing greater mental and physical pain than ever before. Becoming disheartened and lacking proper guidance, many of them abandon the training or continue meditating in a haphazard manner, with little sign of progress. This unfortunate situation may prevail for some time, even years. It is possible for mental imbalances to result from such mismanaged practice. Intelligence should be used in one’s practice at all times. When developing the mind through meditation we should aim for gradual but steady progress, without trying to force our experience to fit a preconceived idea of what “should” happen.