How to Know You're Making Progress

Asma Sherif Moneer

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Knowledge

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This week is Episode 100 of the Rebel Buddhist Podcast! If you’re new to the pod, then welcome! If you’ve been around for a while - welcome BACK! Today, I want to talk about how to know if you’re making progress on your spiritual path. Often, we think we’re not, but it’s usually because we are attached to our expectations… how we think progress is supposed to look. By now, I’m sure you’ve heard that being attached to expectations can really screw us in the end and make us pretty unhappy. Our personal growth path is no exception. Spiritual stages are often depicted as this linear, simple, progressive route. You get from point A to B in the most efficient way. And that’s not fully wrong… but in the end, our path isn’t linear. At least, that’s been my own experience and observation. In fact, if we look at practitioners of any tradition, it’s challenging to find one which has a simple, linear path. Still, we have this image that if we meditate enough, we’ll have this moment of bliss and feel connection with all and be forever changed. Just. Like. That. And wouldn’t it be so convenient if the path to enlightenment was orderly and predictable and linear? But like any proper adventure, it’s filled with detours, landslides, or even avalanches that can block the road or send us on a detour for a good amount of time. I’ve found that our path - when accompanied by practice - often looks more like an upward spiral. We don’t just transcend over an issue then never see it again, nor do revisit it over and over in the same way like a looping circle. Rather, we revisit the same teachings and lessons, but as we progress along that upward spiral, we have a different perspective, new skills, and a slightly different way of approaching it. Sometimes, when I revisit a lesson in life, it’s like, “Really? I’m here again?” And it

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