vedana.net

Practice

Christopher Baskind doesn't know this yet, but he provided me with a tremendous amount of inspiration and understanding last week, as I was exploring the troublesome depths of reactive nature at Dhamma Mahavana.

The phrase, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear" comes to mind... See, meditation is simply something one practices, but I didn't grok this until last week. In conversation one day, Christopher mentioned how many pleasant places there must be here in the SF Bay Area to "practice," practice meaning meditate. And it started to sink in for me intellectually that meditation needn't (and shouldn't) be a monumental struggle, but rather a practice one approaches objectively.

However, intellect is only a tiny variable in the equation of true understanding; direct, applied experience is what really teaches. And this happened for me on Day 3. The notion that I was merely practicing, combined with the 5-minute breaks between each hour-long sit, allowed me to approach each painful hour as simple practice rather than the intense, frightening struggles they'd been in the past.

Thanks Christopher!