The Manure of Experience is an Essay from Meditation in Action which concerns itself with the "why" of Meditation by providing a metaphor or a farmer who buys his manure, versus one who creates it himself, and uses this metaphor to show a slow path to enlightenment.

"Since Buddha-nature pervades all beings there is no such thing as an unsuitable candidate"[fn:1] Chogyam says, and that rather than to study our blockages, or the blockages of others in teaching them, we should instead look for "a particular aspect of his activity or mentality and use is as a ladder, as an anchor, as a vehicle" so that even he could find enlightenment. There is not just character to consider, no 'good person' underneath, just active behavior, passive behavior, continuously changing and producing each moment in this 'world of confusion'[fn:2].

In Meditation, we can detect those weak aspects and by spending time with them we slowly climb out of Samsara. Opening your heart to the pain and violence it knows is something which we rarely feel able or safe to do, but it's critical to re-purpose this energy as the energy for a more spiritual life.

It is said, I think in the Lankavatara Sutra, that unskilled farmers throw away their rubbish and buy manure from other farmers, but those who are skilled go on collecting their own rubbish, in spite of the bad smell and the unclean work, and when it is ready to be used they spread it on their land, and out of this they grow their crops. That is the skilled way.

In The Life and Example of Buddha Chogyam talks about the importance of moving past "right and wrong" of breaking Duality-thinking, but to move past them you have to move through them. "Though actually in Buddhist teachings, concepts are generally regarded as a hindrance. But being a hindrance does not mean that it prevents anything. It is a hindrance and it is also the vehicle—it is everything. Therefore one must pay special attention to Concepts." (emphasis mine, of course.) Being hostile to these things, anyways, doesn't work: the hostility breeds more things as you suppress them. "There is this continual trick of the ego, so that when you try to disentangle one part of the knot, you pull on the string and only make it tighter somewhere else, so you are continually trapped in it." And so if we are trapped in this dualist way of thinking, "that concepts are bad, or such-and-such a thing is bad, divides the whole thing, with the result that you are not left with anything at all to deal with." You either have to "solve" each bad thing battling through them through your whole life.

This dualism doesn't work because without the proper insight, your "collection of things" contains good things disguised as bad and bad things disguised as good. A careful slow understanding of these things through Meditation will let you uncover their true nature and allow you the space to work with them rather than simply throw these experiences out. And those things thrown out would be simply wasted, as will the experiences and ideas your ancestors and family and friends have shown you, all so that we don't have a feeling of failure?

Sometimes one touches on a very painful spot where one is almost too shy to look into it, but somehow one still has to go through it. And by going into it one finally achieves a real command of oneself, one gains a thorough knowledge of oneself for the first time

The point of Meditation is to go through your experiences and understand that experience's relationships with all the other crap, and make something more beautiful of it: the good and the bad are combined together in to something "true." And this energy, the energy which came from the violence and the anger and the "bad" becomes a force for true good within yourself as it transforms in to a sort of curiosity that carries on outside of reading scriptures or philosophy. Sometimes we get 'stuck' and that is not a breakdown or a blockage, simply that we're trying to do too much with an idea or trying too inquisitively rather than curiously.

Now once we have cultivated this curious mind and developed theories, those theories hardly feel like theories any more, but more of a kind of imagination or lens to look out our senses and in to the world. This is the "intuitive mind" as described by logician and philosopher Asanga is a manifestation of the idea that within "true logic" we can find the answer and the opponent's attitude within the question itself[fn:3].

and that insight, that intuitiveness is the true mind that Buddhist Meditation aims to cultivate from our suffering shit in Samsara.

"The point" of Meditation

the point of meditation is to go through your current experiences and understand that experience's relationship with all the other crap

Concepts and Duality are a hindrance, but ...

but being a hindrance does not mean that it prevents anything.

It is a hindrance and it is also the vehicle -- it is everything.[fn:4]

Footnotes

[fn:1] See also Regarding Mu for more discussion around who and what are Buddha-like.

[fn:2] Samsara is explained in different ways as our reality, a state of suffering, but this "reality of confusion" is a useful lens too. the lens of Duality is useful in thinking about Samsara -- it's not just this place or even this material state of being, it's the world un-knowing, of Unexplored Surface Area, of simply needing to accept bad defaults.

[fn:3] Nonviolent Communication is built around this searching of intention and answers within the spoken need or question.

[fn:4] Lots of feeling of The Heart Sutra in here -- it is but is not , ugh open threads