Promise of Fulfillment

The promise of fulfillment:

it started as a discipline, a means of achieving the end result of what I hoped would be a better life. I began to meditate for the clear benefits that the practice seemed to offer me, a promise of fulfillment that I had read about in countless books and articles on the subject. I’ve practiced now for almost three decades, and almost every promise of health and emotional well-being has been fulfilled to a certain extent, perhaps in some subtle ways that often escape my daily notice. But here’s what I see, looking back through my years of practice, somewhere along the way meditation ceased to really be a practice at all, or at least not in any disciplined kind of way. I still call it a practice, as the act itself is more of an art-form, a repetition of mantra weaved through an extended period of silence, an approach of stillness settling thoughts and relaxing any tension of my body. It’s a practice that happens on it’s own now, no longer calling me to action, no real discipline involved — meditation is simply what I’m called to do.

happily so.

the practice of meditation is an answer to its own promise of fulfillment, it’s a paradox in a way, that the action itself is its own achievement, any results are really only the side benefits of sitting for its own sake. I no longer have expectations for my practice, I’m not seeking…