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Working with Your Mind in Theravada Buddhist Meditation
Guided Meditation with Joseph Goldstein
Published on 27 Apr 2012
A guided "big mind" meditation with Buddhist teacher Joseph Goldstein.
"In India, I was living in a little hut, about six feet by seven feet. It had a canvas flap instead of a door. I was sitting on my bed meditating, and a cat wandered in and plopped down on my lap. I took the cat and tossed it out the door. Ten seconds later it was back on my lap. We got into a sort of dance, this cat and I...I tossed it out because I was trying to meditate, to get enlightened. But the cat kept returning. I was getting more and more irritated, more and more annoyed with the persistence of the cat. Finally, after about a half-hour of this coming in and tossing out, I had to surrender. There was nothing else to do. There was no way to block off the door. I sat there, the cat came back in, and it got on my lap. But I did not do anything. I just let go. Thirty seconds later the cat got up and walked out. So, you see, our teachers come in many forms."
Munindra-ji used to say that in spiritual practice, time is not a factor. Practice cannot be measured in time, so let go of the whole notion of when and how long. The practice is a process unfolding, and it unfolds in its own time. It is like the flowers that grow in the spring. Do you pull them up to make them grow faster? I once tried to do that with carrots in my first garden when I was eight years old. It does not work.
We do not need any particular length of time for this process of letting things be.
~ Quotes by Joseph Goldstein
"We are motivated more by aversion to the unpleasant than by a will toward truth, freedom, or healing. We are constantly attempting to escape our life, to avoid rather than enter our pain and we wonder why it is so difficult to be fully alive.
~ Stephen Levine
I leave you with a dedication:
All beings turn away from pain and suffering,
All beings wish for greater happiness, security and peace.
Free from clinging and sentimental attitudes,
May my mind be a place of happiness and refuge for all beings.
May all beings learn to be free of suffering.
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