Disclosure

Rule one of medicine is "Do no harm."
Rule two should be: "Physician, heal thyself."

For gurus, healers of all kinds, and writers of self-help books, the same two rules should apply. We might change the second rule to read: "Metaphysician, heal thyself."

Disclosure: This "metaphysician," the developer of this approach to meditation and the author of this tract about it, has used the technique a lot, with benefits ranging from a little to a great deal. But—and here’s the disclosure—he has NOT healed himself. He has not, with this technique, made himself whole or rich or famous or truly loving or truly forgiving, etc.

What he has done is slowly, slowly make himself a better, more productive, more creative, more caring, more patient, more sensitive person.

"Slowly" is the key qualifier there. Let's do it like this:

S - l - o - w - l - y.

And movement is not always forward. He has often backslid. Three steps forward, one back. Or two back, or sometimes three or four or five steps back.

Why, then, bother? Because, it seems, as long as we are breathing, we can choose to some extent what we do with the focused, analytical attention based on the complex metabolism supported by breath.

We choose. We choose. Doldrums or creative involvement. Destruction or nurture. Greed or generosity. And so on.

My experience with Saltlick is that it helps in the choice of what to do next and how to do it better. And that’s all it does: it helps. Often, I find, it helps a lot, and often in surprising, delightful, unexpected, unpredictable ways. Not always, but often.

It does not transport you to nirvana. It does not give you cosmic enlightenment. It does not enable you to see the future of the markets, or tomorrow's lottery numbers. But it—often—does help in your movement from this moment to the next, and in your contemplation of yesterday’s moments and movements.

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