Preparation for Surgery – #236

#1. In your library are there books you haven’t read completely?” 

#2. “If there are, do you struggle whether to finish them or to let them go?” 

Meeting the Great Bliss Queen, a book in my home library, garners a yes to both questions. Published in 1995, it sported a subtitle that excited me at the time: Buddhists, Feminists, and the Art of the Self.  The Queen wanted me to pick her out when I was searching for a blog topic this afternoon.

There are my characteristic underlinings, bracketing of lines, and many single or double exclamation marks in the first 151 pages. After that, no sign of me. I obviously didn’t finish it. I wonder what stopped me?

Here is a bracketed section I discovered on page 65: 

“In ancient India, surgeons had to pass a simple test of manual dexterity. Presented with a leaf floating on water and a sharp cutting instrument, they were to sever the leaf without sinking it.”

The author, Anne Carolyn Klein, offers the suggestion that the surgeon models the balance required in mindfulness. 

“You have to moderate the tightness and looseness of your mind in order to meditate.”

How is your meditation practice? If you don’t meditate regularly, how is your mind behaving in your daily life? Is it anxious or bored? A calm mind will bring you many hours of happiness.

Let me know how you are managing the weather change.

Thanks for exploring the mystery – Nicky Mendenhall