The View from my Cushion

This is my view from the meditation cushion - what's yours?

As I think I've mentioned a few times before, I'm Buddhist. I'm not necessarily a very good one; I have a very stubborn mind that insists on wandering all over the place in all kinds of fascinating digressions whenever I sit on the cushion to meditate. Nonetheless, I persist, and hopefully some day my wild-horse mind will calm down a little and move where I want it to.

So far, though, I'm pretty much a solitary practitioner. And while I'm fine with that, there are times when I'd really like a community of fellow practitioners to be part of, to talk about the practice, argue about whether the non-existence of all things includes the physical aspects of being, how to reconcile non-duality with ordinary reality, and so on and so forth.

Since I'm very shy about things like this (yes, really), I'm going to take it gently, and go to one of the Zen nights at the Buddhist library. As well, I think I'm going to wander into town and go see the exhibition on the forest meditation tradition; if nothing else, it goes well with the name of this blog! Anyone interested in coming along, let me know.

One thing I've noticed that in Australia, at least, it's considered impolite to be obviously religious - it's even worse behaviour than political arguments! I'm not sure if that makes us a secular society, or just one uncomfortable with admitting it thinks about the nature of the reality (or realities) around it.

What about you? How do you reconcile your beliefs with the people and society around you? I'm not rude enough to ask specifically about what you believe, just how that belief fits in with the rest of your life. Are you comfortable talking about your spiritual beliefs (or lack thereof) with people, or do you think it's too personal to discuss?