Freedom

I started practising intermittent meditation in my thirties. I'd bought a book by Shunryu Suzuki, a Japanese zen master... 

   


I expected something deep and philosophical, and I was quite disappointed: the book started with pages about how important it is to sit straight....


I am not sure why I carried on reading, but I came to appreciate a spirit quite different from anything I expected. It turned out to be deep  once I got used to it. I really liked the book and the author.


I started spending some time everyday sitting straight and focusing as much as I was able to focus, which was not much, on my breath, feeling that I was wasting my time being bored. I stopped, started again, forgot about it, came back to it...


It was actually once of the most precious thing I would offer to myself. One day, sitting doing nothing for nothing, I spontaneously smiled... . It was not a big feeling, there was not much intensity, there was just a smile.

My own hell has always been made of intense emotions and feelings; it didn't stop just because I had find a way to smile for a few seconds every morning. 

A smile for nothing  is freedom. 

The beginning. 

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