If you’ve found your way to this blog, you’ve probably always been a good student—eager to dive in, get it right, and attain mastery. (If not, keep reading. I’ve got some information below I think you’ll find useful as well. ) I wonder if it sounds like this in your head during your meditation sessions:

Okay, here I am on my cushion, she told me to follow my breath, I’m going to pay really hard attention, I’m paying attention, I need to be really intent here, focus, focus, really must focus, do the numbers really support our making that investment, I should really review our assumptions and make sure we’ve considered all the risks, oh shoot, I’m thinking, I’ve got to pay attention and really focus, I’m going to really feel the breath moving through my nostrils, ok, I am totally paying attention to the air going through my nostrils, there, focus, keep paying attention, I think I’ve got it…

I don’t know about you, but I practically have a headache and my shoulders and neck muscles feel all tensed up when I read the above, and I’m sure this hypothetical person feels similarly! Here is an example of a meditator with an admirable sense of intention and willingness to apply effort, both of which will serve you well in the practice of meditation. However, if you were to consistently approach meditation in this way, you wouldn’t fully recognize the benefits of practice; rather, you would be regularly reinforcing a habit—of thinking you need to “try hard,” “tense up”—and in some ways not trust that how you’re being and observing is enough. When we get really tight like this, we have a much harder time integrating new information and absorbing shocks that may arise in our environment. Think of how a willow tree might weather a severe storm vs. a less flexible tree. We also aren’t optimizing how we’re using our energy.  Being more (in)tense vis-à-vis your meditation practice doesn’t get you anywhere.

If you find your posture is rigid, you’re trying really hard to sit just right, you’re straining to pay attention, or you’re talking to yourself in a sharp way when you bring your attention back to the breath, your practice is probably a bit too tight. When you become aware of this, a good first step to remedy this is to examine and adjust your posture. Scan your body to see if there are areas of holding and tension and trying, and allow those areas to relax. Make sure to check and relax your forehead area and your eyes. Even if your eyes are closed, you may be working these areas anyway. Although you’re sitting still, imagine your body not as a solid, immovable edifice, but as a living, breathing, fluid form. Also see if you are in any way controlling your breathing and if so, see if you can let that go. And as you follow the breath, put about 75% of your attention on it (and try not to make yourself extra tight by trying to perfectly dial in that 75%!), while allowing yourself to be slightly aware of other experiences, whether hearing a car horn, smelling freshly baked bread from the neighborhood bakery, or noticing a thought about dinner go by.

That said, I don’t want to suggest that you should just let it all go either and take a “Whatever! It’s all good” approach to meditation. While that might afford you a much-needed break, it won’t help you cultivate attention, insight, or empathy. If you just let yourself daydream or develop your company’s five-year plan, slouch in your chair, or tell yourself “I’m doing the best I can” when you know you really aren’t, your practice may be a bit too loose. Just as if you were playing tennis with a racket with loose strings, when your meditation becomes too loose, it lacks vibrancy and potency. One thing you can do to regain some precision in your practice is to wiggle your fingers and toes, noticing how that wakes your attention up. Then you might attend to and adjust your posture. How might kings or queens hold themselves when sitting upon their thrones? See if you can tap into and embody a sense of natural dignity as you sit. Finally, remind yourself of your motivation for meditating in the first place. After all, you could’ve just gone and spaced out in front of the TV instead. Why have you decided to establish a meditation practice? Notice where you feel this intention in your body, and know you can revisit this area with your attention when your motivation flags.

When considering “not too tight, not too loose,” I like to use the analogy of a toned muscle. If you were to simply tense your calf muscle, for example, it wouldn’t be well positioned to flexibly and intelligently respond to subtle changes in the environment, say if you were walking on a very rocky path. If the muscle were flaccid, you wouldn’t even be able to stand up. If the muscle were toned—engaged and full of energy and attention—it would be ready to work, respond, and adjust to changing terrain.

Determining whether your practice is too tight or too loose requires self-honesty. No one else can really tell you! Here’s what a much-beloved American Buddhist meditation teacher has written on this point.

“My middle way and your middle way are not the same middle way. For instance, my style is to be casual and soft-edged and laid-back. For me to do what usually would be called a strict practice is still pretty relaxed, because I do it in a relaxed way. So strict practice is good for me. But perhaps you are much more militant and precise. Maybe you tend toward being tight, so you might need to find out what it means to practice in a relaxed, loose way. Everyone practices in order to find out for him- or herself personally how to be balanced, how to be not too tight and not too loose. No one else can tell you. You just have to find out for yourself.” — Pema Chödrön from The Wisdom of No Escape

Elsewhere in this blog I’ve described mindfulness as the “art” of paying attention to present-moment experience in a kind, open and curious way. Playing with “not too tight, not too loose” enables us to see how we are wielding the paintbrush of our attention and adjust it accordingly. Let’s hear from you about what you discover as you experiment with “not too tight, not too loose.”