Week of

Meditation Is like Collecting Vegetables from your Backyard!

Natural things, such as sitting, walking, and breathing, are the starting point of developing mindfulness through the practice of meditation. We have to start small, in an ordinary, simple way. In that sense, meditating is like collecting vegetables from your backyard rather than going to the supermarket to buy them. We just walk out into the garden and collect fresh vegetables and cook them. That is an analogy for the direct, personal, and immediate quality of meditation. It involves simplifying our basic psychology and our basic problems. Simplifying in this case means having no expectations about what you will gain by meditating. You just begin. It might be best to think of developing mindfulness through meditation as a way of life rather than as a one-shot deal.

From Mindfulness in Action: Making Friends with Yourself through Meditation and Everyday Awareness

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CTR Quote of the Week

The CTR Quote of the Week is coming to you from the Chogyam Trungpa Institute at Naropa University. The compiler of the quotes and the moderator of the list is Carolyn Gimian.

All material is used by permission of Diana J. Mukpo.

Photo of Chogyam Trungpa by James Gritz.

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