Everybody hits the same few walls. The teacher walks through them so you don’t think you’re uniquely bad at this. You’re not; these are the standard four.
The mind won’t stop bouncing. Thoughts, lists, that thing someone said in 2015. Normal. Don’t fight them — fighting is just more bouncing. Return, gently, to your center and your word. A hundred times if needed. The returning is the practice.
You get sleepy. Soft and still slides easily into drowsy. Sit up a little, open the eyes a touch more, freshen up — find the line between relaxed and asleep.
You get restless or bored. Usually that’s impatience wearing a disguise — the mind wanting a result now. Ease off the wanting (see the last chapter) and the restlessness tends to deflate.
You doubt it’s doing anything. His answer is stubbornly practical: keep going anyway. Stillness accumulates under the surface long before you notice it, like water soaking into dry ground.
If you love this practice, then when something knocks against you, the big thing becomes small, the small thing becomes nothing at all.
— his own line, 2006None of these fixes require belief in anything. Bouncing mind → gently redirect; sleepy → adjust arousal; restless → drop the deadline; doubtful → trust the compounding. That’s just good practice hygiene — the same troubleshooting a completely secular meditation coach would give you.
The obstacles are universal and boring, which is good news: it means you’re normal. The fixes rhyme — less fighting, less forcing, less hurry, more return.