The unmeasurable results of meditation practice

Hello, wonderful Open Heart Project. I hope you are finding moments of ease and steadiness wherever you are.

Before today’s sit, I continue our conversation about some of the less obvious but deeply felt impacts of meditation practice. Last week we talked about ritual and the way it reminds us that practice is not only about self-improvement. This week I talk about what I called “living as mystics hiding in plain sight.”

I know that sounds dramatic, but I don’t mean anything exotic by it. I mean something more ordinary and more profound: remembering there is something deeper going on in our lives than simply accomplishing tasks, chasing success, or trying to avoid discomfort. Those things matter, of course. But meditation practice shows us another way of relating to our experience, to one another, and to suffering itself.

I also talk a little about the Buddhist understanding of suffering and the difference between the pain that is part of being human and the extra suffering we tend to add on top of it. Awareness can uncover the difference.

As always, these are things I am exploring alongside you, not truths I have mastered. I’m very interested to hear what you think.

With love,
Susan

PS: I discuss more on topics like this in my upcoming book, Inexplicable Magic: Meditation for Mystics. Coming in June!

categorized in: dharma, meditation, open heart project