Freshness again and again
We are creatures that like to track, mark and delineate time...like dates and schedules; we like to watch the moon and mark as full or new or harvest; we like to mark the beginning of the fall season and the end of summer; we do this over and over again. Each time it is fresh and bright and just so. It becomes tarnished and old and stale only when we make it so...only when we say, "this again!" Here we are rolling into Thanksgiving and soon December...as we mark the end of a year at the end of December it is not too early to encourage ourselves to consider our practice fresh again and again. Considering and setting aside time to sit together, to sit sesshins as often as we able, to sit daily, to practice fresh again and again. To be thankful for this freshness in the mind. Fresh in the dark, fresh in the midday, fresh in the evening, fresh in the night again and again, fresh.
posted by Dog Hair at 1:12 PM
2 Comments:
I love Liz's reflection on 'again and again'. These short days and then the beginning of the year remind me of the beginning of our practice together in the small zendo, the clear skys, the brightness of the winter sunlight slanting out of the south, our shadows against the walls, the teachings from the cook -- what is practice? There is nothing that escapes it -- the cultivating of the fields of boundless emptiness. In almost imperceptibly gentle ways, we seem to come together as a spiritual community. Today I will find time to sit in a sunny space and work a little bit at the sewing of the robe, remembering my dharma brothers.
It was something that came out of the sewing session. Karyn said that those who you sew your robe with become your dharma brothers. Happy was I to become a brother and even happier that I was surrounded by nothing but sisters!
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