Buddhist-Meditation-Systematic-and-Practical

ecomes easy to do if one's renunciation is firm and
determination to meditate is strong.
c. Use all one's winter and summer vacations as time for
meditation. Western persons like to travel everywhere,
to see this thing and experience that. All this means so
much time and trouble, lost meditation time, and many
troubles experienced. Instead of this, devote long
holidays to meditation, a profitable use of time and a
freedom from troubles. When I was a professor, every
holiday in summer and winter was given over to solitary
meditation. We can see that there is a good progress in
these three steps, renouncing first part of the day, then
whole days, and after that weeks and months.
d. When one has progressed that far, even though one
still goes out to work, household duties should be
renounced. If the wife is the meditator, then she should
hand over the cooking, dishwashing, and babies to her
husband. If he is the one most interested in practice, let
him give over his part of the household work to her. All
these things can be done by either man or woman; there
is no difference between them in such matters. Women
may hold on to babies because they love them too much,
while men may be attached to their garden work. A
meditator, even while still in the household, has to learn
to be like a hermit, living simply. One should be like the
great lay bodhisattva Vimalakirti who, although living
amid his family, did nothing in that house except
practice meditation.
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