In September, a kitten started to frequent my garden. Clearly the runt of her feral litter, she was small and seemed to have no interest in the chipmunks or the abundant small birds. Not a good hunter. That statement showed itself as true when less than three weeks later, Gato as I called her, was emaciated and dying of hunger. Having that day deboned a soup chicken, I fed her the skin and gristle. That began a relationship. Gato is well now, needs to be neutered, and comes into the house for deep sleep for a while, then out again for most of the day and night.

Every part of this story is about how small choices and acts grow. They do so because on planet Earth life, consciousness, habits for good or ill, and the well-being of others or the detriment grow. We’ve been doing the same thing with our meditation practice: growing it. This fosters the ability to meditate as well as integrate and apply the instruction into our life. Both ensure that a lack of awareness -heretofore not even known to have been present- is being transformed into Awareness. On and off the cushion integration support changes in one’s habits and patterns of consciousness. All the while, contemplation is being cultivated, honed, and becoming a fertile process of personal transformation; especially because it uses common events such as emotions arising or a thought occurring or the automation of naming and reacting, or things taken for granted.

In our meditation practice, we are slowly becoming familiar with a strata and quality of “mind” or “awareness” that is open, spacious, unfilled, a sameness in all regards; a vibrant, lucid neutrality. It stands to reason, that as this already-present character of awareness becomes more familiar and known by each person, that person’s inner processes will be infused by these qualities. Growth; little by little, and a service to all, beginning with one’s self.