This is one of my favorite metaphors for how meditation sometimes works when I'm emotionally frayed. Imagine you're in a deep bathtub and you can only barely keep your head above water to breath. That would make anyone stressed, anxious and irritable. So, the water is the chaos of samsara and the bathtub is my mind.
What meditation does for my troubled mind is drain that dirty bathwater out. As it drains, it takes with it all the grime and grit my confused mind accumulates in samsara--greed, hatred and ignorance. In these moments, gone is the static noise of life that usually prevents me from hearing the Buddha within.
It is then that I follow my breath deeper to release all the labels, boundaries and tethers placed upon my mind by the ever cleaver, yet misguided, ego. It is the ego that Christians label "Satan." As a Buddhist, however, I believe that we are the only one's to blame for being influenced by the aforementioned ego. Perhaps that's disconcerting to learn, but that also means we can be our own saviors and chart out own destiny. We don't have to accept the limitations of ego, we can be our own saviors. This is liberating to me.
Those precious, moments of meditation enable me to simply "be." In those moments I am at one with all things in the universe, which grounds my spirit and makes me feel whole again. Once all the artificial limits are stripped away, the oneness of the universe envelops me with such joy and freedom that it often brings tears of peace to my weary eyes.
Thank-you, dear Buddha, for taking the leap to teach your inspired wisdom on meditation, and the Dharma. Did you know that Buddha almost decided not to share what he learned during his enlightenment within the forests of India? It is out of honor and respect for such an unselfish and generous man that I bow before Buddha statues. It's not worship. It's showing gratitude. It is also bowing to the Buddha within all of us. We practice the Dharma to grow our Buddha within, until it will finally breach the muddy depths of life to open atop the water and bask in the sunlight of awakening.
~i bow to the buddha within all beings~
http://thebuddhistblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/this-is-one-of-my-favorite-metaphors.html