“What do you hope to gain
from the study and practice
of meditation?”
asked the Lama?
“I want to be free
from neurosis and illness!”
the prospective student replied.
“I could teach you meditation,
and guide you to a wise physician
but we can only help you
if you apply our instructions.
For if a wealthy invalid
pays for the council
of the wisest doctor
but leaves his medicine
untouched by his bedside
he will most certainly perish.”
The wise physician she was led to
analyzed every peer-reviewed,
nutrition-oriented scientific study.
He made his findings known for FREE
through video, and blog, and live stream;
but she did not want to modify her diet
and so she blamed her husband
while others of her ilk
blamed their wives.
She found a way to sidestep the guilt
of not doing what she should
but her body was not fooled
and grew sicker, and weaker,
and degenerated further and faster.
Her lama explained
that to successfully traverse
the Buddha’s path
of Love and Letting-go
it was crucial to enthusiastically embrace
a compassionate and clean diet
as well a daily practice
of brisk walking meditation.
She attended his classes
month after month,
and year after year,
allowing his words, and philosophies,
and stories, and techniques
to wash over her,
making her feel quite good,
and special, and important,
and justified.
So much so,
that she did NOT feel the need
to deeply and transformatively
apply his instructions,
but instead
merely contented herself
to follow his teachings
in the most superficial
and perfunctory of manners,
if at all.
Years passed,
a decade passed,
and her diet grew:
neither compassionate
nor clean,
her meditation:
seldom ambulatory, or brisk
or transformative.
The years passed
and her health
both physical and mental
deteriorated.
In class after class
her teacher implored her
to eat compassionately and cleanly
and to perform brisk, walking meditation.
She did not have the courage
to tell herself
or her teacher
that she did not want to.
She told tails
of menacing squirrels in trees,
and scary dogs behind fences,
and inclement weather,
and treacherous sidewalks.
She persisted in telling stories
painting herself as the helpless victim.
Doing this might have soothed
her feelings of guilt
at least for a while
but it did not free her from the tyranny of fear,
or physical degeneration:
rapid, and tragic, and utterly avoidable.
Like a gifted Padawan
determined to ignore wise counsel
and who enthusiastically embraced a path
that led to a life
of needless torment
behind a rasping, breath mask.
Let us conclude
with a simple
call to action
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These spiritual poems are also available on
the “Meditate Like a Jedi” podcast.