With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
This morning was a challenge! I woke late, did a short, fast bicep/triceps workout, practiced zazen, and talked with K. Then off for a walk in Pioneer Women’s Park before zazen at 9:00. Walking, or should I say stumbling, around my futon, I jammed my thigh into the wooden edge. Pain. Then off to the park. Suki was a madwoman dog. Running hard after every bird, every leaf, everything that remotely looked like fun to chase. We did our lap of the park and I discovered my keys were not where I usually put them and I had forgotten my cell phone in the pain of a bruised thigh. So, another lap of the park to look for a mess of keys. No luck.
All the while I am practicing: notice the anger, notice the panic, notice the grief over the loss of my balance and memory. Notice the beautiful sky, overcast and pregnant with rain. Notice and take another step, and another.
At the car, I looked once again in my shoulder bag. Good grief. There they were in a pocket I never use for keys!
Starting the car and driving back to the Temple I felt deep relief and a sense of gratefulness for the practice of Zen. While Suki took up residence on a zabuton in the zendo, I lit a stick of incense and bowed deeply.
Be well.
2 comments:
Sounds like your jogging experience was a normal real life event. They never stop do they? I was wondering how one remembers to remember to stay awake during these everyday events and continuum. Because in fact they never stop. They just keep coming. We can stop our daily routine and count to ten, or go somewhere a sit and meditate, but that too is just part of the continuum. On and off the wheel of life we go. One minute free of distraction the next full of ego and distraction. I wonder if there is a maturity that starts occurring to an awake human. That no matter what their inner state of mind might be, they do not stop to judge it or try to change it ( thinking that it is somehow not right or bad in some way ).
There is no evidence that the is anything in the universe that is judging us, except our fellow human beings. Maybe the maturity we seek is to live free of any self-judgment. To live spontaneously with what we are really like, not needing to stop, to get our self on track when we feel we have fallin' off. :) For falling off is an illusion too.
I'm a zen infant but desperate to understand which I understand is very unzenlike. I appreciate your blog very much. Thank you for being (if that's okay). Today my only conclusion after trying just 5 minutes of practice is, "i suck at this". But that's a step in the right direction isn't it?
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