Meditation is the cultivation of the gesture of welcoming unflinchingly whatever arises- of welcoming it wholeheartedly into awareness.
* * * *
Cultivation (bhavana in Pali) is an agricultural term. It conjures up the planting of seeds, the watering of the seeds, and then the protecting of them to give them time to grow. And you do have to protect them, because they’ll get eaten by the birds, or trampled by the cows, or washed away by the rain. That is why there are fences and drainage ditches around fields and young orchards and vineyards.
With the seed of mindfulness we are talking of a potential that resembles an acorn that, if watered regularly and protected in the early stages, is capable of growing into a towering and sheltering oak whose branches and foliage can provide dependable refuge from the elements.
So it makes sense to take care of your nascent meditation practice, especially for the first thirty or forty years. It is precious and can easily be trampled or washed away by all the competing demands of the day and of your own mind.
Jon kabat Zinn, Mindfulness for Beginners, Sounds True. 2016.