Meditation and Conversation: A Guide to Further Inquiry

Every good book raises at least as many questions as it answers. Here are a few questions inspired by this book’s dance with grace and tranquility, as a guide for further exploration beyond the bounds of these pages. The questions connect to the observations of each book section. More importantly, they connect to our daily motions through the world, and our common search for peace.

 

Awakening

What does it mean to you, to be awake?

Why is peace necessarily intricate and delicate?

With what conception of peace did you begin this book? Has it changed? If so, how?

 

The Pace of Peace

Why is wealth found more in giving than receiving?

What have you recently received by giving?

Why is peace best found at a patient pace?

 

A Small Peaceful Presence

Why is peace neither massive nor permanent?

Where do you spend the most time, daily? In what ways are you or are you not tranquil there?

What is the most chaotic place that you regularly experience? What small elements of tranquility reside there? How can those elements be expanded?

 

Inside the Living Storm

What does it mean in your own life that “peace is too important to be left just for peaceful moments”?

Do you fight against weather or other unchangeable conditions in your life? How can you better align with weather’s ways and wisdom?

What are the healthy limits of accepting turmoil?

 

Gathering Strength

In what way does your own small strength serve the larger world?

When have you grown simply by firmly standing still? What was the growth?

What does it mean that “tranquility has hard points and sharp edges”?

 

Spaciousness (the Key)

What’s the difference between emptiness and spaciousness?

In what ways do you currently feel empty inside? In what ways, spacious?

When you look within that current emptiness, what richness is contained there?

 

Into the Endless Richness

What tranquility, beauty and grace do you see in the scene around you at this moment?

What does it mean to you, to follow the path of your next single step?

 

A Peace of Abundance

What does abundance mean to you? What does it include?

What seeds are you planting and tending in your current daily life? What’s growing unexpectedly? Is the unexpected also a part of your abundance?

Why is water central to every form of abundance?

 

A Gardener’s Tranquility

Who and what are you currently shaping? How are they shaping you in return?

At this point in your life, in what ways do you feel you are blossoming? Do you have compassion for yourself in those areas where blossoming is difficult?

 

Family Letters

Do you trust the ones closest to you? Why or why not? In what ways?

Do you trust the earth, the soil, the air? What does trusting the earth mean?

What does the path of your personal life say to your family? What will your actions today communicate to them?

 

At Peace with Intimacy

What does it mean that “intimacy is truth”? How are honesty and intimacy related?

Why is intimacy inherently difficult as well as beautiful?

What are you intimate with, besides a romantic partner?

 

Intimate with War

Can tranquility be found within war? If so, how and where? If not, why not?

In what small daily ways are you at war, and with whom or what? Can you make peace?

Why do we resemble those we fight? Why do we fight those we resemble?

 

Governmedia

Besides our elected leaders, who and what are you governed by? In what ways?

How do the media shape the governance you practice over your own life?

How do government and media reflect who you are, personally?

 

The Beauty of Doubt

How does doubt allow us to have new perceptions?

At what points has doubt opened you to unexpected possibilities?

Can faith and doubt co-exist peacefully inside a person? Do they, in you?

 

Letting Wounds Go

Where in the elements of nature around you do you see examples of the essential nature of letting go? How does it parallel your own need for letting go?

Why, emotionally, is it necessary to embrace wounds fully before releasing them? How does the embrace create the release?

How does compassion lead to forgiveness?

Tranquility in Patience

How is tranquility a practice like yoga or meditation? How does it differ?

How does your patience serve your personal tranquility, and that of others beside you?

Why is learning to love mystery and the unknown an essential skill within the practice of tranquility?

 

Imagination as Foundation

Why is imagination necessary for understanding and compassion?

In what times of your life has your ability to imagine helped bring you closer to others?

What does it mean that “Imagination is practical”? How has it been so in your life?

 

Aligning with Purpose

What is your purpose? What do you contribute, and what more would you like to?

Who does your daily work serve? Is it aligned with your purpose? How and how not?  How can you better align your love and work?

When you pass on, what do you feel you will need to have contributed or experienced in order to be at peace?

 

The Banks of Clear Streams

How does money disturb or create tranquility in your life?

Describe any differences there may be, in your view, between true abundance and monetary wealth. How are the two in harmony, and how in conflict?

Without needing more than you currently have, how can your relationship with money become more tranquil?

 

Time’s Laughter

When time is abundant for you, what do you fill it with? Do you make tranquil choices?

How does the impermanence of life make it sweeter and easier?

What purpose does humor serve for you? How can you naturally bring it more into your daily environment?

 

Becoming the Harvest

What do you appreciate about aging?

Does the brevity of life increase its preciousness?

What forms of beauty do you see in the elderly in your life?

 

Intimate with Integrity

What does keeping integrity mean to you in your current personal life?

In what ways are you keeping and failing it? How can you deepen it?

Transition’s Ceaseless Seas

In what ways are you presently in transition? How can you best bring forth the graceful and tranquil from within the transition?

How can slowing down in small ways assist you in creating larger positive transition?

Are you daily taking time to just be with beauty and stillness? How can you better integrate beauty and stillness into your daily routines?

 

Walking Softly Beyond

What direct evidence of previous generations and cultures do you see and feel in your daily life? How does it contribute to your own life?

What greater mystery do you see that intrigues you? How does not always knowing or understanding enrich your life?

Does gratitude inform your daily acts and feelings? What are you grateful for at this very moment?