From today's Daily Dharma:

"If I could meditate, I'd be a better person."
When people start to meditate or to work with any kind of spiritual
discipline, they often think that somehow they're going to improve,
which is a sort of subtle aggression against who they really are. It's
a bit like saying, "If I jog, I'll be a much better person." "If I
could only get a nicer house, I'd be a better person." "If I could
meditate and calm down, I'd be a better person"... But loving-kindness
- maitri - toward ourselves doesn't mean getting rid of anything.
Maitri means that we can still be crazy after all these years. We can
still be angry after all these years. We can still be timid or jealous
or full of feelings of unworthiness. The point is not to try to change
ourselves. Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves
away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are
already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right
now, just as we are. That's the ground, that's what we study, that's
what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.

- Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness from
Everyday Mind, a Tricycle book edited by Jean Smith

This reminded me of an exchange I had last night with the official leader of the Women's Sacred Circle last night as I was driving her home from the church potluck where the pagans sniffed out the new ministerial candidate for the church. I've always really appreciated the very quiet way she has of making things happen. One might describe it as mellow, or laissez faire, or t'ai-ch'i-master-like. "I'm just more comfortable doing things that way," she said. "It just feels more natural to me."

Anyone who has ever known me knows that I am the polar opposite of my Circle Sister in this respect.

"I've come to a level of acceptance about who I am," I said as we walked through the chaos of Harvard Square. "But I've tried to moderate my own style in that respect."

"Why?" she asked.