How to Meditate without Seeking (Even if You Want Enlightenment)

Wanting enlightenment is exactly what’s stopping you from attaining it.

So what do most people do? They try harder not to want it. 

Spoiler: that just makes it worse.

In this article, I’m going to show you how to meditate without chasing enlightenment — even if you’re still chasing it.

Wanting Enlightenment Stops You From Attaining It

Everybody who is somewhat aware of any legitimate spiritual teaching knows that desire, or wanting, is one of the main reasons we suffer and why we think we are not enlightened.

“I am hungry, and I want to eat so that I feel good.”

“I am poor, and I want to have money so that I can finally do what I want to do.”

“I am not enlightened, and I want to attain enlightenment so that I always feel good.”

We take our current situation, find a reason why it’s not ideal, and then imagine how it can be better.

The price for doing that? Suffering.

And let’s say we get to be in that situation we imagined some time ago—guess what? It becomes our current situation again, where we find a reason why it’s still not perfect, and we imagine how it could be better.

To make things worse, you’ve already figured this out, and instead of chasing money or the perfect partner or whatever, you’re now chasing enlightenment because you’ve heard that enlightenment is the ultimate state—where you’re free from everything, in constant bliss always and forever.

The only problem is: you want enlightenment, but wanting is the main obstacle to attaining it.

Why Trying Not to Want Just Keeps You Stuck

Buddha even said desire is one of the root causes of suffering, so this must also count for wanting enlightenment, right?

You want enlightenment, but you also know that wanting it is the main obstacle to attaining it. Now you might try really hard not to want. Since wanting enlightenment prevents it, you might switch to the method of trying not to want enlightenment, so that you can eventually attain it. The only problem is: wanting not to want it is still wanting.

You might even convince yourself that you’ve stopped wanting, and maybe, for whatever reason, you might even feel a little better because you pretend that you don’t want anything anymore.

You think you are now on a good path, coming close to enlightenment, since you’ve stopped wanting altogether. Life is in flow, and everything seems to go really easily. But for whatever reason, you get snapped back into a state of suffering and despair.

You might feel even more disappointed now. “I almost had it,” “I was so close,” but you failed. And you’re disappointed with yourself because you failed. And you don’t want to fail.

If you had meditated more, or repeated more mantras, or whatever, you would still be where you were—and you would be much better off than now. The next cycle of suffering has already begun. You’re constantly going back and forth between feeling like you’re on a clear path and feeling like you’ve failed. But you also know that wanting it to be different or trying to make yourself not to want is still wanting, and that it will make you suffer even worse.

So, what can you do in this situation when you feel completely stuck? No matter which way you turn, it feels wrong, and you don’t know the way out.

Freedom Comes Through Accepting Wanting

Recently, I’ve discovered an interesting interaction between a Zen Master and a student.

The student quoted a line from the Four Great Vows in Buddhism—“Desires are endless”—and asked the Master what it means.

For all of you who don’t know about the Four Great Vows, they’re something you usually recite at the beginning and end of a Zen practice with the group, the Sangha.

Sentient beings are numberless. We vow to save them all.

Delusions are endless. We vow to cut through them all.

The teachings are infinite. We vow to learn them all.

The Buddha Way is inconceivable. We vow to attain it.

This is how I learned them, but there are many slightly different versions, and the line from the version the student asked about goes like this: “Desires are inexhaustible. We vow to extinguish them all.”

It points to the exact same problem I just talked about before. Wanting is endless, so I vow not to want. (Which is also wanting.)

So back to the story. The student asked the master what it means: “Desires are endless.”

And the master replied: “I want!”

Which is a very clear way to answer this question. Instead of theorizing about it, he instantly pointed to the thing that’s closest: “I want.”

But the story is not over yet — now comes the real punchline.

Then the student asked him, “How do I extinguish all desires?”

And the master just said, “I want!”

…

When I read this answer, I was shocked. Instead of giving an explanation or even a solution to the issue of wanting not to want, he simply pointed straight to this issue and resolved it.

On a surface level, it doesn’t even make sense. The student asked how to get rid of all wanting, and he just said, “I want.” Instead of fighting this wanting or trying to resolve it, he simply accepts it as it is.

Wanting implies that we want to make one thing into another. Letting go of wanting means accepting everything as it already is.

Imagine that the voice inside your head, telling you what to want or what not to want, is no longer bothering you. You see all the thoughts and impulses that make you want something, but you are no longer interested in them. You’re not investing any more energy into this habit of wanting, and you just accept it as it is.

This does not mean that you follow every want that comes up or that you get bounced around by your desires. It’s the exact opposite. Since you are no longer invested in fighting this mechanism—because fighting it would only strengthen it—you become much clearer about which wants you want to follow and which you don’t.

You’re not attached to wanting anymore, and you accept everything as it is.

When the Zen Master was asked how to get rid of wanting and he answered, “I want,” he basically accepted wanting as part of human life. He didn’t fight or deny it, but accepted it so fully that he became free from it.

We don’t become free from things just because they’re no longer present; we become truly free when anything can be present, and we are not bothered in the slightest.

This is true freedom from wanting.

Letting Go Of Wanting In Meditation

How can this help you in your meditation?

Instead of fighting your wants, you just notice them. You don’t even have to accept them, because that’s the next big trap — forcing yourself to accept things you actually don’t want to accept.

No, you just notice them.

When you sit in meditation and a thought comes up like “I want enlightenment” or “I want the alarm to ring so I can finally get up from my meditation,” instead of attaching to it, trying to want it more badly, or trying to get rid of the want, you just notice it.

You notice the thought of wanting something, you notice the feelings that come with it, you just notice what’s happening.

There is no right or wrong here. Whatever comes up, you just notice it.

You don’t have to do anything else, that’s really it. Except if you want something else, but then, you just notice that too.

Alright, I hope this was helpful.

I wish you all the best. Your friend on the way, bye.

PS: If you’re looking for more guidance on your path, I also offer an online course that dives deeper into meditation and spiritual practice — just click here.