The aim of meditation is to open us to this here and now. Alan Watts put it this way: We could say that meditation doesn’t have a reason or doesn’t have a purpose. In this respect it’s unlike almost all other things we do except perhaps making music and dancing. When we make music we don’t do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of

ZEN MASTER DOGEN, the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, declared, “To be enlightened is to be intimate with all things.”

MEDITATION ON EQUANIMITY Equanimity is a wonderful quality, a spaciousness and balance of heart. Although it grows naturally with our meditation practice, equanimity can also be cultivated in the same systematic way that we have used for loving-kindness and compassion. We can feel this possibility of balance in our hearts in the midst of all life

In general these problems arise when spirituality ignores or denies our own humanity.

relationship. We are always in relationship to something. It is in discovering a wise and compassionate relationship to all things that we find a capacity to honor them all. While we have little control over much of what happens in our life, we can choose how we relate to our experiences.

How we live is our spiritual life. As one wise student remarked, “If you really want to know about a Zen master, talk to their spouse.”

When Soto Zen founder Dogen said, “A Zen master’s life is one continuous mistake,” he was pointing out how mistakes and openhearted learning from them are central to spiritual life.

ENLIGHTENMENT IS INTIMACY WITH ALL THINGS

In the emptiness of all things—the magical insubstantial way in which all things arise and vanish, lacking any abiding or fixed self—is hidden the gift of nonseparateness.