[Steve answers first] It's very common for many meditators to find the practice very exciting in the beginning. of their practice. They often think, "Wow! This is so different! This is so wonderful! So new!" And for a lot of people it's like a feeling of coming home, a feeling of, "Oh finally I've met some other people who think like me." There's a lot of excitement, a lot of joy, and there's some energy there to start developing themselves. And often with the big stuff, the heavy anger, the heavy yelling and screaming, the grosser unbeneficial qualities that a person has, they're able to let go of a lot of it.
Very early on they can see that they have let go of some of their unbeneficial conditioning. Then they think to themselves, "Hey great, it works. It's wonderful. I can relax now." And this is where the complacency comes in to the practice. Because they've gotten rid of so much of the kind of the yucky stuff that they think the other stuff isn't so important, doesn't matter - it can stay there, because life is already so much better. Then the meditation practice gets skipped for a day here, skipped for a day there, skipped for a week here, skipped for a week there. And, the TV is just so comfortable, or the video, or whatever. And the complacency is really a danger, it's very much a danger!
The Ten Paramis. The Ten Perfections. I was talking about these before. We have a specific type of meditation for developing the those Ten Paramis in which you go through each of the ten and ask yourself some basic questions.
I'll use Generosity here as an example. How much have you grown in Generosity? And how do you feel about your growth in Generosity? Those are two of the questions.
There's also the question, "Is there more you can develop in Generosity?" And that's supposed to be a set answer. There's only one way to answer that one, "Yes, there is more you can do." Unless you're a Buddha, there's more you can do. Then, the finally question is, "What is at least one thing in my your life that you can do to help your Generosity to grow?"
Now, when you do reflect on those ten in your meditation period, deeply reflect on how you feel about your different qualities, on how much you've grown. Is there more you can do? What else can you do? This forces you to make a decision. This decision that you make is going to be your next new resolution. Can you follow through with it? Can you actually do it, can you make that change? The minute you make that decision and then you go through with it and you make the change, what has happened to complacency? It doesn't exist because you've just grown.
Whenever you're growing in the practice, that's opposite to being complacent. Complacency means you're not growing, you're just comfortable, you may think, "It's okay." There's are so many Western meditators who are "okay". There's are so many Eastern meditators who are "okay". It's a common disease around the meditation world. So you have to kind of kick yourself every once in awhile.
Now, if you can't do it to yourself, go to a good friend. Get yourself to a Kalyanamitta. Get yourself to a good kind wise spiritual friend. Get yourself to one of our retreats and I guarantee that we're going to push you a bit. So the good friends come in to help put an end to your complacency. It is indeed something to watch out for and you don't want to get become complacent.
[Rosemary adds to the answer] I'll just add to that. Wise reflection. Many Western meditators don't have enough wise reflection-type meditations in their practice and instead they mainly focus more on emptying their minds so that they can get a calm and peaceful mind. Because of that they don't develop the second factor of the Noble Eightfold Path which is Right Thinking. Wise Reflection, or in the Pali language, "Yonisomanasikara," is very important to help to motivate us toward a direction in life.
So wise reflections help to let go of complacency. In my opinion the most important reflections to help let go of complacency are reflecting on the preciousness of the human life, on how fortunate we are, and on death and impermanence. If we reflect that we may die tomorrow, how can we be complacent? Our opportunity to develop ourselves in this life may disappear quickly - how can we be complacent? So many wise reflection meditations can help you let go of complacency.
[Steve adds to the answer] I'll add a bit more. There's a common view with a lot of meditators that if they can get concentrated or mindful enough, then everything will work out fine. Compassion will come later. Wisdom will come later. Everything will come later; as long as they can become concentrated and mindful. But it actually doesn't work that way.
There's probably somebody here in Berlin who has been robbing from little convenience shops, robbing from people's homes, robbing from gas stations, whatever, for fifteen years. The police haven't caught him them yet. Now think. If this person actually does exist, how good is their concentration and mindfulness? I guarantee that it's better than anyone we've ever had in any retreat. This person has lots of concentration and mindfulness. They are really concentrated. They are really mindful. But they have wrong view, they've got have wrong understanding.
Concentration and/or mindfulness doesn't guarantee wisdom. If you want to get more wisdom going, as Rosemary mentioned, wise reflection is an important way to do it. Stimulate your mind. Get it going. A lot of people don't actually know that the Buddha got became enlightened while he was reflecting on a very deep level. Yonisomanasikara, wise reflection, he actually got became enlightened in that way. A lot of people think he got became enlightened watching his breathing, by doing breath-awareness, but he didn't; according to the scriptures, he actually got became enlightened through wise reflection on Dependent Origination.
So stimulate your practice, get away from complacency, develop more wisdom.