Mindfulness Meditation (For Everyday Life)

ways of the world, no longer a passive and naive
agent. The fully developed human being embodies
the unity of soul and spirit, up and down, material and
non-material.
The meditation practice itself is a mirror of this
journey of growth and development. It too takes us
down as well as up, demands that we face, even
embrace, pain and darkness as well as joy and light.
It reminds us to use whatever comes up and
wherever we find ourselves as occasions for inquiry,
for opening, for growing in strength and wisdom, and
for walking our own path.
For me, words like "soul" and "spirit" are attempts to
describe the inner experience of human beings as we
seek to know ourselves and find our place in this
strange world. No truly spiritual work could be lacking
in soul, nor can any truly soulful work be devoid of
spirit. Our demons, our dragons, our dwarfs, our
witches and ogres, our princes and princesses, our
kings and queens, our crevices and grails, our
dungeons and our oars are all here now, ready to
teach us. But we have to listen and take them on in
the spirit of the heroic never-ending quest each of us
embodies, whether we know it or not, in the very
fabric of a human life lived, for what it means to be
fully human. Perhaps the most "spiritual" thing any of