Meditation Day - A full Month

"Before you study meditation, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. While you are studying meditation, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers; but once you attain enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and rivers are rivers".

It is imperative that you come to understand one thing and one thing only right now. We are using words to describe something that is beyond words. Alan Watts stated, "The common error of ordinary religious practice is to mistake the symbol for the reality, to look at the finger pointing the way and then to suck it for comfort rather than follow it".

If we are seeking to wrap our minds around this thing called, "meditation", to wrap it up in a box, to find a book that will map out a definitive portrait to which we can say, "Yes. That's it" then you are sorely misguided.

And that's the dig, you know. We want our Gods wrapped in neat little packages.

Sit down. Be quiet. Listen and experience.

These three are your greatest treasures.

Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.

Patient with both friends and enemies,

you accord with the way things are.

Compassionate toward yourself,

you reconcile all beings in the world."

Tao Te Ching

"Happiness is like a butterfly;

the more you chase it,

the more it will elude you,

but if you turn your attention

to other things,

it will come and sit

softly on your shoulder..."

Thoreau

...."apparently intelligent people often make the equally ridiculous mistake of identifying a philosophical system, a dogma, a creed, with Ultimate Truth, imagining that they have found that Truth embraced in a set of propositions which appeals to their reason. There are thousands of men and woman searching through volume after volume, visiting religious societies, and attending the lectures of famous teachers in the vain hope that they will one day come upon some explanation of the mysteries of life: some saying, some idea, which will contain the solution to the Infinite riddle. Some continue the search until they die, others imagine that in various ideologies they have found what they desire, and a few penetrate beyond ideas about Truth to Truth itself." - Watts

All that I am trying to introduce is the ancient and ageless idea of building Wisdom & Compassion from the inside out.

Concentrating on the breath,

Centering myself,

The warmth and power

of a smile

heals me:

and thus,

heals the world.

Concentrating on the breath,

Centering myself,

May all beings

Be Happy,

Be Well,

Be Free from Suffering.

"If you want others to be happy

practice compassion.

If you want to be happy,

practice compassion."

Dalai Lama