Transformation

It's very important in the meditative process not to become attached to a particular outcome. But it's seductive to do so. One of the things I remind myself of is that my life will simply unfold and, if I accept this, it will unfold without my suffering over it. Charlotte Joko Beck speaks to this in her book, Nothing Special:

Transformation is allowing ourselves to participate in our life right this second. That's scary business. There is no guarantee of comfort, of peace, of money, of anything. We have to be what we are. Most of us, however, have other ideas. It's as though we are a tree that produces leaves and fruit of a certain kind. We want to produce this because it's comfortable. Transformation, however, is to produce what life chooses to produce through us. We can't know what this is going to be. It might mean any kind of a transformation -- in the work we do, in the way we live, in our health (it might even get worse, not better.)
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The way of transformation requires an impeccable warrior - which is not the same as being a perfect warrior. Instead, we constantly do our best, working with specific care. Instead of resolving, "I'm going to be aware," we need to resolve, "I'm going to be aware specifically when I do that." Instead of trying to work with everything at once, we work on one or two items at a time, maybe for two or three months, and just keep pounding away. If we let even one thought go by, such as "Oh, I'm really a hopeless person," without being aware of it until afterward, then we want to sit up a little straighter and try again. We need to apply ourselves steadily, to build up muscle for the long, hard journey. In the end, we realize that it's not a long, hard journey, but we won't see this until we see it.

This second paragraph reminds me of the slogan from the Seven Points of Mind Training, "Always meditate on what causes resentment". That's what it means to work specifically. This way we cultivate observer consciousness about how our mind really works - not our fantasies about how we wish it would work!