Month: May 2017

There are statues of smiling Buddhas, and the images of such contemporary Buddhist teachers as the Dalai Lama, Sogyal Rinpoche and many more, show them as laughing.

Someone once sent me a card which I have pinned up in front of me. It reads, ‘Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves – for they will have endless amusement!’

We can become too earnest about our practice of meditation; we can try too hard. I often recall the words of my Alexander teacher: ‘Be focused, but not intense!’

Lightness and ease, a sense of mischief, bubbling laughter, are among the priceless gifts of deep meditation.

As a boy we had an outdoor well. I remember turning the bucket down, down, into the water far below, then pumping the handle vigorously as the bucket rose to the surface full of icy cold water.

As we breathe in when meditating it is like drawing up the bucket from our inner depths. We have only to reach down into our innermost being and we shall find there all the wisdom we shall ever need. But whatever we draw up is not just for ourselves. When we meditate we do not do so just for ourselves, but for others. We reach down and we reach out. What we receive we give to others.

Someone wrote to me recently with these words which came to her during a meditation:

Draw deeply from the well of silence
Wherein Love may be found.
Allow it to pour over you
But also to flow through you.
Seek simply
To be a channel
This day and every day.