Book Clubbin': Reading Pictures

As mentioned yesterday, I have begun participating in an online book club with The Meditator's Workbook via the Tricycle Community. Prior to sitting this morning, I reviewed the meditation instructions included in what I had previously read, roughly Chapters 1-5. The type of meditative practice explained in this book is "insight meditation," and is a slightly different meditative practice than that which I had been working in over the past five months.

Leafing back through the chapters in an effort to remind myself of suggested guided practice (primarily visualization), it occurred to me again how lovely the drawings accompanying the start of each chapter (each chapter is grouped as one of the individual ten "Stages of the Journey") are. These ten stages when depicted in illustrations are more commonly referred to as "The Ten Oxherding Pictures". Representative of many examples of Chinese woodcut art (like the one above), each illustration depicts what one can expect to encounter along a meditative journey towards awareness--a sort of illustrative model of the path to "enlightenment."

If you are like me, sometimes when studying new concepts or ideas, the use of illustrations or graphic depictions assists me in better recalling what was covered. As for the written content of the chapters, I find myself warming up to the practice despite my initial apprehension so am looking forward to enhancing my current practice with the suggestions in Mr. Flicktein's book and following the reactions of others online.