Ch. 9 - A Taste of Stillness from Journey of Insight Meditation by Eric Lerner ON THE MORNING OF the tenth day I interrupted my return to the hut following my breakfast to catch my breath on a high flat rock that afforded a view of the entire valley beneath the monastery. The dawn haze had burned off, revealing the neighboring valley, whose sharply edged checkerboard fields stood out in contrast to the surrounding jungle. Perhaps I romanticized by calling this place “jungle” when, in fact, farmland was everywhere. But there is so much unclaimed land in Ceylon that nowhere in the countryside are you so far from the uncultivated forests that you’d not have second thoughts about wandering off in broad daylight, much less in the dark. No cobras here, though, the monks told me. The mongooses made sure of that. One of them was staring at me from a rock higher up the path. His elongated, rodentlike body was covered with prickly fur that made him look as though he’d been dunked in motor oil. His snoutish face was kind of cute, though, and I’d often seen the monks feeding these animals in the courtyard, as a good turn, no doubt, for the animal’s appetite for poisonous snakes. ... by Eric Lerner 2025 20 minutes 53 seconds Listen to Streaming Audio Your browser does not support the audio element. Download Audio (10.1MB) Audio copyright, 2025 Pariyatti View the book, eBook and free PDF download. You can also find it at Amazon worldwide using this link: http://a-fwd.com/com=pariyatti-20&asin=B0CJL9SG5D. About Eric Lerner. View more books and audio resources available in the Pariyatti bookstore.