I'm still at the Budda Bar, still on my first drink, still writing, and still with at least an hour left on my battery. Life is good.
Across the street, life is good in another way. That's where they have the stands set up for the wine tasting. People are lined up to try the latest vintages from the Garraf and the Penedes. I love the way that wine is sold. If you love good wine, you don't buy it because it has a fancy label or because of the ads or because Cindy Crawford is the spokesmodel in those ads. You go out to a winery or to a store that cares as much about wine as you do, and you actually taste the stuff. If you're lucky, you wind up dealing with enthusiastic, happy people who are really in love with the wine that they grow and sell. They'd love for you to like it, too, and hope that you will. But if you don't, they under- stand, because in the world of wine there is no such thing as "best," just The Wine You Prefer. This is the way I think meditation should be taught. No glitz, no glammer, no fancy label, no claims of bestness, no expensive ads with Heather Graham in them. You just hold talks and teach what you've got to offer to all who attend. And you do it for free. If you really love the technique of meditation or the spiritual path that you have to offer to people, put your ass (and its ass) on the line the way that vintners do, and let people *taste* the damned product before buying it. If they like it, they'll take what they've learned home with them and imbibe it again. If they find that the knowledge you gave to them for free brings some benefit to their lives, they'll come back to you to find out more. If not, you'll have done a nice thing anyway. This is actually how meditation was taught in a few of the spiritual organizations I\ve hung with. And it seemed to work for them. Who paid for it? For the posters and the ads and the cost of the meeting rooms and the time spent teaching the classes? We did, of course, "we" being the students of that partic- ular spiritual path. We considered it selfless giving and "paying it forward," because other students before us paid for our first free talk and instruction session. Call me an idealist, but I think that this is how teaching meditation works best. Doing it free keeps all the money crap out of the equation, and much of the ego crap as well.
