The Box! What Box?

     Meditation can feel like a struggle, no matter how accepting & equanimous we try to be. Our mind can become a bouncy ball in a small box - one wall the here & now, the other walls our thoughts of the past or future. 
     Meditation instructions often suggest that to train a wild horse (our untrained mind), don't lock it in a confined stall, let it out into a wide-open field. Other meditations compare thoughts to transient clouds, floating by on an endless blue sky. What are these pointing towards?
     The confining box in which we struggle during meditation is not real, but a mental construct. While frustrating, at the same time the ego finds safety in confinement - the ego's natural tendency being to reduce & pin down all experience to simple, easy-to-comprehend, static sound bytes. So what lies beyond this nonexistent box?

     “No one to be, nothing to do, nowhere to go.” Ajahn Chah

     What happens when we "release the necessity to know for certain where we’re at, and who we are, and what we’ve accomplished"?           Reginald A. Ray   http://www.soundstrue.com/store/weeklywisdom/?page=single&category=IATE&episode=6324

     Zen teacher Koun Franz on this subject: http://zennovascotia.com/talks/not-just-here-not-just-now
 

Courtesy of Buddha Doodles www.buddhadoodles.com