"The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do."

~Galileo Galilei

When we take up mindfulness practice, it can be difficult to continue without a sense of progress, without a guarantee of results: Was that a good meditation or a bad meditation? Have I acquired Ninja-like focus? Am I sufficiently relaxed and exuding peace? Am I accomplishing my entire to-do list with efficiency and a one-pointed mind?

Often any "progress" that happens, happens beneath our conscious awareness, on its own timetable. Our growth in practice is not linear. Sometimes it is not until we are faced with a real challenge off the cushion that we notice how differently we are responding.

It is similar to the way it takes real time for fruit to appear on a tree. The stunning beauty of the blossom may be gone, the fruit may not be visible yet, but indeed, it is growing. Even the result -- the fruit -- is but one point in the entire growth and dormancy cycle. There is much to be appreciated in the rest of the year: The cultivation, the continual transformation if we look closely enough, the rewards inherent in the very process, and the faith in that process.

It's for this reason that we keep at it, letting whatever we encounter on the cushion be a "good" meditation, letting the results take care of themselves.

There are plenty of opportunities for a "good" meditation: Here come the summer classes, more ongoing practice support, and the day-long retreat opportunities for graduates. Read on for more information, a stunning poem at the end of this email... and keep practicing!

In this time of year between blossoms and fruit, please enjoy this, one of my new favorite poems:

"From Blossoms"

by Li-Young Lee

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward

signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into

the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.