Paper Bag Enlightenment


Our community has banned plastic yard bags in favour of thick, multi-layered paper ones. The paper yard bags are very strong when dry, but they don’t hold up so well when wet.  After a week of absorbing the moisture from various organic materials, and the odd rain fall they begin to disintegrate. It’s usually the bottom that goes first, and usually while I’m lifting the offending bag to the curb. That’s just the nature of paper - enough moisture will eventually cause the bottom to fall out of even the thickest, strongest paper bag.

This is a parable of sorts I suppose. Awareness is the water. Meditation is the sitting bag, the act of letting your watery awareness gradually sink into the deepest and most subtle layers of yourself. Meditation is the practice of becoming so completely open and vulnerable to your own awareness that even the most well hidden and previously protected layers of your papery self structure begin to disintegrate - until one day the bottom falls out. Enlightenment! 

Tallis

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