…the practice was never “ours,” and it’s there … that its true saving grace lies.
It’s natural and appropriate that when we start to practice, most of us will think of it as “my practice.” It’s something I’m doing, and it’s for me. Many of us will tend to approach it as something we do to get certain benefits that we want.
The “mindfulness movement” has drawn millions into some level practice on these premises. It’s all quite natural and fine.
But in time, these notions will change. We will come to see that the practice was never “ours,” and it’s there – in its not being ours – that its true saving grace lies.
To do it for benefits we wanted is, curiously, the very problem, the very misunderstanding, that in time practice can cure us of. When it does, it can truly become something like a “cure-all” – a panacea, a great grace, a path out of suffering, a true gateless gate.