There is good news and bad news when it comes to developing our Step 11 meditation practice. The good news is that there exists for each one of us an infallible, personally customized guide to meditation which is guaranteed -- if followed carefully -- to direct us precisely in our meditation journey.

The bad news is that it's inside each one of us, and can only actually be accessed by meditating ....

In the west -- perhaps particularly in America -- we are reluctant to pursue any activity unless we can do it very well. When the jogging craze hit the States many years ago, it wasn't enough to pull on a pair of sneakers, shorts, and an old t-shirt and jog. You had to purchase the right equipment, read the right books on how to jog, and heed the warnings of experts who predicted terrible consequences if you didn't jog just right. The same thing has happened recently with yoga. All you really need for yoga is a body and a floor to place it on, but that doesn't stop people purchasing yoga clothes to do yoga in and yoga tea to drink when they're through yoga-ing. The supreme irony is the Buddhist magazines. These are supported primarily (and successfully) by advertising, though how you can advertise to a Buddhist whose basic belief is that suffering comes from wanting is one of the mysteries of modern life.

The good news about meditating is that it can never be done perfectly. A commitment to Step 11 meditation can never therefore be a commitment to meditating well. It can only be a commitment to meditating imperfectly -- and we can all meditate imperfectly. And as we do, we slowly start to access that internal guide to meditation.