“In the context of a meditation practice, our ground might be our restless, untrained mind, jumping from thought to thought and worry to worry like a wild animal. But it's not a bad ground to have; it's actually a perfect and necessary step one in the journey ahead.”

In the 100-Hour Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training, we discuss the concept of "ground, path, fruition" when we want to break down the view, practice, and result of a particular teaching for our own clarity or to better present it to someone else. This threefold structure essentially invites us to create our own recipe for growth.

The first step of the recipe — the "ground" — is like the ingredients of the dish, the materials with which we begin. It's our present situation, what we have on hand right now. It might look like a jumbled mess: some spices here, some raw ingredients there, things that may not seem appealing at first but contain all the potential to transform into something exquisite. In the context of a meditation practice, our ground might be our restless, untrained mind, jumping from thought to thought and worry to worry like a wild animal. But it's not a bad ground to have; it's actually a perfect and necessary step one in the journey ahead.

In this way, framing our progress with the threefold structure of ground, path, and fruition necessarily involves honoring all of our "stuff," our unique ground as it currently exists. Notice how the recipe doesn't just call for path and fruition! We need the base materials to build with, which could be the very parts of ourselves we feel most critical of.

Step two, the "path," can be thought of as what we go on to do with those ingredients. It's the part where we intentionally prepare, cook, heat up, cool down, and utilize those tried and true methods that create a special kind of alchemy in both our literal kitchens and the vessels of our minds. Our "path" can be committing to twenty minutes of mindfulness practice each day for a month to give our "ground" a chance to undergo all of those transformative processes.

The "fruition" is the result of combining those two steps, which, if done skillfully, can result in a well-balanced dish of spaciousness, clarity, compassion, and stability. Of course, as we are all works in progress undergoing cycles of change, the fruition of one practice can also go on to be the ground of another if we so choose. There are endless possibilities when it comes to inner growth, and these recipes exist to help us actualize that potential.