Direct Experience
I have in my hand, a glass of lemonade. I can tell you if it is cold or warm. I can tell you whether it is tart or sweet. However until you have direct experience of drinking it, you really cannot know for sure what it tastes like. The same is true of having a good practice. You can read all you want about it, and have teachers lecture to you, but until you take the step to practice, you cannot know what it is like. It takes direct experience to taste the lemonade so you can know what it actually tastes like. Sometimes the study comes easier than the direct experience. This is natural. Artists often remark that the hardest stroke of a paintbrush is the first one on a blank canvas. Once they do that, everything flows. The Tao flows, our practice flows.
