Last night I was having dinner with my artist friend, Jane, and for over two hours we discussed jewelry-making, yucca trees and the extreme beauty of imperfection. As to to imperfection, I admitted I was struggling with getting meditation right and after sitting every single morning for nineteen months, I still couldn’t quiet my mind. I told her that just this week I mentioned to Steve that I entered a more Zen-like state when taking old bracelets apart than I ever do in my a.m. sit sessions.

How do you know the meditation isn’t contributing to the other, he asked.

Now how did this man get so wise? He doesn’t close the door on the dog for twenty minutes every day. But he does appear rather other-worldly when he plays his trumpet. [I relayed this account to Jane as we poured ourselves more pink wine.]

Recently I considered giving up my meditation completely but forces intervened and sent clear directives: this morning I sat down in my bright windowed kitchen nook to write this piece and centered instead on a Huffington Post piece about the new meditation book by Surya Das, Make Me One with Everything. In it, Das tears down the belief that we need to enter our practice as thought-swatters to make way for an empty mind. Whew!! Why didn’t I know this a year and a half ago?

By the way, have you noticed the cover artwork on nearly all meditation books includes either rocks or bowls of water? My baby grandson, Harrison, is in an obviously sublime state with either of those items…with or without the dog.