When the mind is no longer pushed and pulled around by grasping and avoiding, including the grasping at enlightenment or personal growth, then we fall into an appreciation of life as it is, we fall into anappreciation of ourselves as we are and our friends and family as they are, not what we would like it all to be. Zen is not about life becoming bigger and better, it is about appreciating our lives before the comparing mind of bigger and better or smaller and worse comes into play. - Geoff Dawson