Whether you sit and practice alone or in a group situation doesn’t make any difference. If you find it difficult to meditate and want to stand up and walk out of meditation, the group situation does help you not to chicken out. It also provides a sense of fellowship.
At the same time, whether you are sitting in a group or physically alone, you are always sitting alone. You might have been told that even if you don’t have a solid commitment to meditation, the good vibrations in the room will pick you up. The energy will uplift you in any case. But that’s not possible. The sanity that one person experiences in the sitting practice of meditation is not transferable. That kind of cosmic hitchhiking doesn’t exist. Everybody’s in their own little vehicle, which is called a body. There’s no room for anybody else in that particular body. Everybody has their own car, their own body, so that in fact you can’t hitchhike. You need to acknowledge that, and the sooner, the better, because then you won’t have unrealistic expectations. You will realize that you have to pull yourself together, rather than waiting for somebody to rescue you.
Sitting practice is independent and individual and a very lonely journey. Aloneness is the basic point. Whether you sit in a group or individual situation, there is a sense of loneliness. Sometimes you might feel completely isolated and cut off in your experience. But sometimes you might experience this aloneness as the basis of heroism. In the positive sense, you are making a journey, and nobody’s telling you to make this journey. You are making the journey alone. The only help that somebody can give you is to tell you that others have made this lonely journey and that you could do so as well, in the same way
Excerpt from A meditation instruction by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
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