As you develop more meditative skill, you will be able to acknowledge and accept whatever negative thoughts are found within yourself.
You will be able to work with them instead of denying them. You will use them as the earth in which you plant the seeds of insight.
Everything you have been in past lives and in the past during this lifetime comes together in the one point that is you now.
The future opens up from this one point to all the possibilities that exist. By allowing yourself to consider all past possibilities, you open to future possibilities as well. The idea is to examine the past, but not sink into momentary urges that cause harm or pain.
Meditation helps you consider past events and feelings and then let them go once you understand them.
You may be striving to achieve a more spiritual state of mind. To do this you must also to understand the other side of your being: the Shadow.
Carl Jung developed the concept of the Shadow, a less conscious component of one's being. Without understanding the urges of this Shadow, it is difficult, if not impossible, to become an integrated personality.
In insight meditation, you not only are distracted by thoughts concerning, for example, the past or facets of yourself that you dislike; you are also occasionally moved by insight into the way you have acted and why you are unwilling to accept those unattractive characteristics.
The Shadow, according to Jung, can provide the information you need to achieve balance within your personality.
Each of us has a uniquely personal insight into the world. We are not like those twenty second-graders who are all supposed to gain insight into the meaning of certain words in the reading assignment for the day, or learn the value of certain addition and subtraction tasks. We have our own interpretations of whatever "words" come to us, and we are fully capable of adding two and two and arriving at our own answers. We are not limited by a linear, one-answer-fits-all kind of thinking.
The following exercises may help you understand your Shadow side and how it works.
The results of these two exercises may surprise you. I find that when I really examine something that I dislike, something arises to show me that there is a positive mixed in with the negatives. The opposite is true of examining something I really like. The insight could be as simple as thinking, "Why am I spending valuable time looking so closely at this thing I really like?" It could be insight into how the light and dark play of shadows adds depth to an image.
Insight may elude you for a while. Patience is necessary to achieve results with insight meditation. You have learned so far to be generous with yourself, to accept whatever ideas come up as you meditate. You have learned something of the discipline of meditating each day fot a few minutes, finding even a few minutes you can devote solely to yourself (another form of generosity). Now you have to keep doing what you are doing, even if it seems like nothing is happening.
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