When You Open The Door And Invite

By Not Knowing, Not Hoping To Know And Not Acting Like We Know What's Happening, We Begin To Access Our Inner Strength.

Rather Than Becoming More Relaxed, You Start Pulling Down The Shades And Locking The Door. When You Do Go Out, You Find The Experience More And More Unsettling And Disagreeable. You Become Touchier, More Fearful, More Irritable Than Ever. The More You Try To Get It Your Way, The Less You Feel At Home.

We Are Like Children Building A Sand Castle. We Embellish It With Beautiful Shells, Bits Of Driftwood, And Pieces Of Colored Glass. The Castle Is Ours, Off Limits To Others. We’re Willing To Attack If Others Threaten To Hurt It. Yet Despite All Our Attachment, We Know That The Tide Will Inevitably Come In And Sweep The Sand Castle Away. The Trick Is To Enjoy It Fully But Without Clinging, And When The Time Comes, Let It Dissolve Back Into The Sea.

Sometimes We Find That We Like Our Thoughts So Much That We Don't Want To Let Them Go.

Meditation Takes Us Just As We Are, With Our Confusion And Our Sanity. This Complete Acceptance Of Ourselves As We Are Is Called Maitri, Or Unconditional Friendliness, A Simple, Direct Relationship With The Way We Are.