An Old Zen Rule Of Thumb Is

It's Of No Use To Look Back And Say, "i Should Have Been Different." At Any Given Moment, We Are The Way We Are, And We See What We're Able To See. For That Reason, Guilt Is Always Inappropriate.

Awareness Is Our True Self; It's What We Are. So We Don't Have To Try To Develop Awareness; We Simply Need To Notice How We Block Awareness With Our Thoughts, Our Fantasies, Our Opinions, And Our Judgments. We're Either In Awareness, Which Is Our Natural State, Or We're Doing Something Else.

There Are Many People In The World Who Feel That If Only They Had A Bigger Car, A Nicer House, Better Vacations, A More Understanding Boss, Or A More Interesting Partner, Then Their Life Would Work. We All Go Through That One. Slowly We Wear Out Most Of Our 'if Onlies.

When We Refuse To Work With Our Disappointment, We Break The Precepts: Rather Than Experience The Disappointment, We Resort To Anger, Greed, Gossip, Criticism. Yet It's The Moment Of Being That Disappointment Which Is Fruitful; And, If We Are Not Willing To Do That, At Least We Should Notice That We Are Not Willing. The Moment Of Disappointment In Life Is An Incomparable Gift That We Receive Many Times A Day If We're Alert. This Gift Is Always Present In Anyone's Life, That Moment When 'it's Not The Way I Want It!

Meditation Is Not About Doing Something