Hope that helped.

Actually I think the key thing about all these great pointers to your meditation being off track, is to keep in mind that experiencing any or all of these things for a period might actually be an indication that your meditation is working!

Why? Well simply because it is common practice among many people to experience these tendencies and to repress them. Once we start meditating the repression button comes off and suddenly we find ourselves behaving more authentically in line with how we actually feel.

I certainly found this for a while. As a specific example, after practising meditation for a few months I started to get more angry with my children. I was quite confused at first but when I reflected on it I noticed that 1) actually I was just as angry before but never expressed it and 2) now I stayed angry for a much shorter period of time. After a while my tendency to get angry reduced on the whole without any need to repress it.

I cannot emphasis strongly enough as I wrote above though: one might experience an increase in these tendencies for a period. If they continue then something is definitely up with the meditation practise.

I posted some similar signs over here also which might be of interest. There are more strictly from a Zen Buddhist perspective though.

Best wishes.

“If the voices in your head are saying, for example, that you’re a bad spiritual student, you’re a bad meditator, you fidget, your mind wanders, at some point you could identify that as self-hate and let go of it. But if you start thinking what a good meditator you are, what a good spiritual person you are, how well you’re doing, how much better your practice is than others’, that’s self-hate, too, and very difficult to let go once you are hooked.

It’s helpful to develop a habit of not believing any of the voices — listen, but not believe. It’s as if you are sitting around a dinner table with a group of people and they’re all talking. You can listen, but you don’t have to decide who is right and who is wrong, who is good and who is bad, etc. You can just have the attitude of mind of being present but not involved.

When you can have that attitude of mind with other people, it’s a big step. When you can have it within yourself, you’re moving toward freedom. Because the part of you who’s trying to figure out which is right and which is wrong, who is good and who is bad, etc., is the problem. That’s the person who is confused and suffering. When you can just step back, there isn’t anything to figure out, and there’s nothing to believe. There’s just being fully present in the moment.

The voices take us out of the moment and make us believe there is a world other than the present. The more they can get us involved in that belief, the more we’re going to believe in the illusion of ourselves as separate, adn the more we’re going to suffer. The less we believe, the less we are seduced, the more we’re able to be in the present, and the less there is someone to suffer.”

Read this a few days ago, enjoyed it and meant to comment, hopefully will still… but just simply too busy at the moment!

All the best!