Every act, not just formal meditation, is carried out without anchors to the past or illusions about the future. To be always in a meditative or prayerful state is a way of living, a kind of mental hygiene, a path on which one grows in wisdom and compassion. It is an illusion to think that the proper or natural state is to be without wounds, says Thomas Moore, in Care of the Soul . The concepts of original sin in Christianity and the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism are doctrines that human life is wounded in its essence and that suffering is the nature of things. The soul, representing our depths, may present itself to us as often through our shadows as through our brightness.
Melancholy thoughts carve out an inner space where wisdom can take up residence.
And Moore advises that we not fight depression, but learn from it. The theological doctrine of incarnation suggests that God validates human imperfection as having mysterious validity and value. Our depressions, jealousies, narcissism, and failures are not at odds with the spiritual life. The small things in everyday life are no less sacred than the great issue of human existence. This practice suggests an 'archetypal' reading of the Bible, regarding its stories not as simplistic moral lessons or statements of belief, but as subtle expressions of the mysteries that form the roots of human life.