Meditation is based on the understanding that the deepest nature of human beings—buddhanature—is the capacity to grow and flourish and awaken, to express kindness and generosity and compassion  •  meditation is a way of removing the obstacles that block our connection with our deepest nature  •  in this way meditation practice is like sculpting: we are taking away everything that’s not the sculpture; we are removing everything that is not expressive of our basic fundamental nature  •  another image of buddhanature is that of an onion: step-by-step we remove layers of the onion; the trick here is that when we finally get to the center of the onion, there’s nothing there  •  yet another image is that we are scraping off all the barnacles that make movement impossible, that imprison us with kind of a crustiness of heart and mind  •  in one sense meditation feels like a project: we need discipline and inspiration to continue in this practice  •  but the irony is that in the practice of meditation, our doing is really an undoing  •  we don’t need to do anything  •  we have what we need; we just need to allow ourselves to experience it.