Meeting the Dragon – Year’s End 2023

Meditation is not a task with a known goal.

It’s something you can’t do wrong, a chance for the things of this world to come towards you and to meet you, for doors to open by themselves, and for us to see where the ancient paths lead.

One true thing is all it takes to open the body of reality.

What is the heart of a question? Our questions could rest on erroneous assumptions, so that beneath them is way too much knowing. The mind resists uncertainty, wanting to fill in the blanks. Even our cells like predictability—but we are swimming in a sea of uncertainty.

Ask the universe any question and it will answer, though it may not take the form you expect or plan for.

Our questions are much smaller than what’s on offer, what’s possible as an answer: the whole universe might be doing something through me.

—Jesse Cardin on October 29, 2023

In meditation things come and go, as in life.

In Zen the experience of loss contains a treasure. There is gold inside the loss whether of a person, a country, or a beloved house.

Grief dissolves everything. The valleys of life are important for developing empathy.

Buddha’s loss, his leaving, was extreme. Mazu gives us the path to walk through the demons: Help others cross. Make yourself a raft.

An Indigenous saying: Inside the last tear, happiness is hiding. 

—John Tarrant on November 12, 2023