Mistaken Meditation

I was reading some words of wisdom from the Buddha tonight wherein he used the image of a boat to describe the role of meditation. To him, the meditation practice is the boat that helps us cross the river of delusion, the river of suffering. When it the boat brings us to the other side, we can safely discard it:

The boat is not the opposite shore--it is just the vehicle we use to get there.

How many have mistaken meditation as the end game? How many of us confuse means and ends? Perhaps it's helpful to see meditation, prayer, scripture study, sutras, mantras, chanting, ordinances, tithing, and oblations--to name a few--as transitional objects. Sacred observances we cling to as they work their marvelous wonder--we become wholly transformed. The scriptures we so diligently studied, the mantras we so religiously chanted, we become them. Like a boat, they've carried us to our destination and they are ever with us. They are our being, no longer our doing.

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