There's an analogy to our meditation practice that we all need to consider.
Remember that the goal of meditation isn't to meditate correctly.
It's to be mindful.
It's to attain enlightenment.
It's to simply cease to be doing anything else.
But it certainly isn't to be,
Quote unquote,
Meditating with the appropriate technique.
The way that we meditate,
Our practice,
Is just a tool that we're going to use to attain mindfulness.
It in itself is just one of the many approaches.
And there's an analogy that works well for this.
And the idea is that to remove a thorn,
You need to use another thorn or a needle to,
You know,
Dig it out of your skin and fix yourself,
Right?
But the analogy goes that to remove the thorn of maya,
To remove the thorn of delusion,
To see truly,
We have to use another thorn.
And then once we've removed the first thorn,
We discard both,
Leaving us free.
The idea being is that we need to use meditation to heal ourselves,
To see truly,
But at some stage we're going to have to give it up and just be and just see and just be mindful,
Right?
This is why it's important to really step back and consider what our goal is.
It's not to be quote unquote known as a meditator or to fall into the trap of spiritual paraphernalia,
You know,
The beads and the incense and the chanting and all of that sort of stuff.
That's all great.
And you know,
If it helps you fine,
But that's not the goal.
The goal isn't to be like,
Hey,
I'm such a good person because I meditate and I've got these morals and ethics and all of this sort of stuff.
That's all separate.
It might come with it.
It might not.
Our goal is to attain mindfulness.
So just as we would remove a splinter with a thorn or with a needle and then discard both,
That's what we need to do.
That's what we need to do with our meditation practice.
And like always,
Remember that all of the advice that I'm suggesting here in these talks or my books or my podcasts or wherever you're hearing me is akin to a finger pointing to the moon.
It's just saying,
Hey,
This is a potential option.
This is a way that you could potentially proceed.
I'm not taking you to the moon though.
I can't take you to the moon.
I can just be the finger pointing there saying,
Hey,
This is the goal.
This is a potential approach,
But you have to get yourself there.
And to do that,
We meditate.
But remember,
Ultimately,
Our goal of meditation is to attain enlightenment,
To be mindful,
Be mindful,
To cease to be doing other things.
