In our meditation, we usually hope to find calm, happiness, bliss and enlightenment. But what we often encounter instead are all kinds of challenging and highly disagreeable mindstates. Defilements and distractions of all sorts assail the heart.

Ajahn Dhammasiha reminds us that these negative states are very normal to encounter in meditation. Unless we're someone with great pāramī, like Venerable Sāriputta, who's heart was was already very pure from practice in previous lifetimes, we have a lot of cleaning up to do in our mind.

In fact, that's exactly the point of our meditation: It's a little bit like tackling a really difficult and long delayed cleaning job. Finally getting into the attic or the basement room that hasn't been sorted for years. Or finally pulling the washing machine off the wall and cleaning out all the grime and mold behind and underneath it.

Similarly, a big part of meditation is to allow all the difficult stuff to rise into awareness, and then to consciously contemplate it as impermanent, not me, not mine, unsure, not my self. This process usually has to be repeated many times. Each contemplation will weaken the issue only slightly, and the process of overcoming it tends to be very gradual, taking numerous repetitions over many years. 

Responding to a question, Ajahn points out that in case of severe trauma, it may not be possible straight away to follow the above process. The trauma may be too overwhelming. Rather than beneficially contemplating it, the mind may latch onto it and fully absorb into it, a form of 'wrong concentration' ('micchā-samādhī'). That may just reinforce the trauma, making it worse.

If that's the case, it's better not to focus the mind internally. One has to start by training the mind in external activities. We gradually brighten the mind and fill it with more goodness and happiness. It's better to interact, to make good karma in interaction with other beings. Whenever we do something good for others (kindness, generostiy), we make our mind happy and brighter. We develop wholesome self esteem. We keep precepts ('sīla'), not harming or hurting ourselves or any being.

Once the mind has been uplifted and lightened through kindness, good karma and virtue, it will gradually be able allow the trauma into awareness. The mind is now bright and confident enough to address the trauma with wisdom and insight, weakening and abandoning it step by little step.

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