Meditation out of character? what do you say?

Grandpa the country person

You might be surprised that today we went out shooting! Tweed coats, hats, guns, cartridges, beaters, other people with guns, sloe gin, good lunch and lots of dogs.  This may seem out of character for a meditator but it isn't out of character for a countryman almost born with a tweed babygro.  The miracle is that this man meditates and that takes him beyond character twice a day for half an hour.  So thinking a bit about this idea of the character of a meditator made me wonder what you would make of the shooting meditator.  We think of meditators in a certain way, meditation goes in our minds with robes and religious practice, with vegetarians and with the naturally eco-sensitive person who practises non harm to all creatures.  Those people are to be commended, there are not all that many of them who manage to practise all these commendable things but there is not a scrap of doubt that peacefulness in all things is conducive to meditation.  However, the message of this blogger is that meditation is the thing which is conducive to changing your thoughts and deepening your understanding and taking you beyond the realm of character and upbringing.  My observation of my particular country pursuit meditator is that you would probably just take him for an English country gentleman until you asked him a question that needed a really considered answer and then his years of meditation would give him that extra perception and his advice would be free from reference to his character or ego, he would be able to just listen  to YOU.