Developing a deep quality of interest is one of the keys to the whole art of concentration. Our steadiness is nourished by the degree of interest with which we focus our meditation ... Concentration combines full interest with a delicacy of attention. This attention should not be confused with being removed or detached. Awareness does not mean separating ourselves from experience; it means allowing it and sensing it fully ... As we learn to steady the quality of our attention, it is accompanied by a deeper and deeper sense of stillness -- poised, exquisite and subtle.
It came to me while reflecting on that woodland encounter with the night that there are two very valuable spiritual gifts that simplicity gives to us. It seems the more we can strip our lives down to essentials, the more deliberately and awake we can live; with few wants and more time for silence and contemplation, the more we have access to our inner resources. The more lightly we walk on this earth, the more she gives to us. I call these spiritual gifts inner smiling and outgoingness of the heart.