Walk Over the Bridge

You do not live on the bridge. You walk over the bridge. In meditation there is automatically some sense of the absence of aggression… Because there is no rush to achieve, you can afford to relax, because you can afford to keep company with yourself, you can afford to make love with yourself, be friends with yourself. Then thoughts, emotions, whatever occurs in the mind constantly accentuates the act of making friends with yourself.
.... Another way to put it is to say that compassion is the earthy quality of meditation practice, the feeling of earth and solidity. The message of compassionate warmth is not to be hasty and to relate to each situation as it is. The American Indian name “Sitting Bull” seems to be a great example of this. “Sitting Bull” is solid and organic. You are really definitely present, resting.

Cutting Through

Spiritual Materialism:

The Open Way,

 Chogyam Trungpa

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In the Eleventh Step of AA, we pray and meditate to supposedly improve our conscious contact with God. When I call God “The Heart of Compassion”, I am by name defining the aspect of an infinite quality that is comprehensible and personal to a limited mind in the same manner Christians use the name Jesus. Otherwise the term God is almost meaningless to me and is not a quality but an abstract concept, a title, or a mental image. Not that I shun anything others wish to call their Higher Power but, when I sit, I am placing myself before the power of compassion in an earthy and solid manner. I am sitting with no preconceived idea of what I am doing other than sitting… relaxing and taking it easy on myself. Just as the ocean is where a fish swims and breathes, the grace of God is the ocean in which I live and breathe when I sit quietly a few minutes each day. However, meditation and prayer are but the bridge. Relax… cross the bridge to the Heart of Compassion... to solid ground... and then I go about my business knowing...

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