REFUGE
We hear a lot today about the need for relief from physical illness or stress, and very often that is what causes an investigation of meditation to begin. Another cause is emotional turmoil of some kind, which eases into a temporary calm or peace during meditation. Both of these categories of motivation result in using meditation to change conditions which are seen to be negative to other conditions which are deemed 'positive' or 'better'.
Another type of meditator is an adventurer -- she or he want to explore the nature of the mind itself, to experience the various phenomena which arise in consciousness. They seek to know, and sometimes to love, more deeply and fully.
Whatever your analysis is of the factors which brought you to meditation, it is important to establish before you begin each formal practice session what drives or motivates you. We act, speak, think and feel in response to conditions -- some of them external, some internal. Some are conscious and some -- the tricky, blind-spot ones -- are not. Very often when meditation is taught only as a technique -- a remedy for unpleasant experiences, or a doorway to pleasant ones -- the instruction overlooks how deeply our conscious and unconscious motivation influences the quality of the practice itself.
As I teach in various parts of the world and observe what is going on with people, it seems that the ones who are making the sort of steady effort that produces an on-going sense of clarity and groudedness and centredness have a very clear sense of how they relate to these questions of motivation, or aspiration. They also seem to understand how unconscious motivation can sabotage what they are consciously on about and are actively, continuously probing to re-program consciousness to a continuum recollection of where we actually find refuge, and what motivations actually fuel spiritual progress.