2012.01.03 _ 15

I sat for half an hour this morning. An interesting experiment, to have switched now for sitting every day to sitting when I feel like. As they say, the opposite of a great truth is also a great truth. It is a great practice to sit every day no matter what; it is also a great practice to make it a conscious decision to sit, each day, and to carry responsibility for that decision. Both can be great, but they are rather different, and it feels important to choose, to know which one I have committed to, rather than to drift between them. Eos' notion of a great container within which to practice great freedom.
Continuity of practice, in some form, I feel is absolutely essential. Each day, no, each second the world reminds us of ways to be distracted, and if I don't open myself for some balancing force, the distraction wins, and I just drift for a few billons seconds and then I die.
Each morning I spend between ten and twenty minutes on a visualization practice that first came to me in bits and pieces, based on other practices, more than eight years ago, and I don't think I've skipped that any day since then. Also, each day I slowly read a single page in one of my most favorite books, until I have once again read that book from cover to cover, while making a daily page of notes to that page for myself, as a communicating dance between reading and writing. Finally, I used to make daily notes reflecting on practice opportunities I found and missed during the day; something I have now intensified to hourly notes.
End of journal excerpt -- will keep it shorter tomorrow :-) edited 08:15, 3 Jan 2012

In the last few days it was not easy to find a somewhat quiet place to meditate, and yesterday I did not manage to meditate. Not a good thing. I haven't gotten enough light therapy either recently, and together this lets in the Big Grey Sluggishness (aka winter depression).

So, return to the practice. Prostrations today - my mind did not have the patience for standing meditation.

'Listen you, enjoy your time
you really don't have very long
you were born just a moment ago,
in another moment you'll be gone.' Cold Mountain Poems

Everybody is making resolutions, but will we be around to keep them? So much certainty and solidity we add to the future.I have so little control over everything. I'll just enjoy my time as Wang Fan suggests.

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"When I came home, on the abyss of the five senses, where a flat-sided steep frowns over the present world, I saw a mighty devil folded in black clouds hovering on the sides of the rock. With corroding fires he wrote the following sentence now perceived by the minds of men, and read by them on earth:
How do you know but every bird that cuts the airy way
Is an immense world of delight, closed by your senses five?"
William Blake #timestamp

:) Smiling @ "Listen you, enjoy your time." Here in Miami we are enjoying the first real cold snap of the season, and I was noticing the difference in people's behavior, especially my own. Whether it is the weather or the beginning of the year, I had a burst of energy yesterday which lasted into the night and woke me up with integrative dreams too early. It was creative and productive, but today it seemed to take twice as long to do basic chores, of which there were many. I seem to be sneezing and sniffling a bit, so will sleep early tonight. *check in*

Started with a longish sit this morning, and ended with a shorter one this evening. In between lots of focussed activity, which tends to get embedded in itself. Sometimes focus and space, the one helping the other. Getting caught up, with anxiety - this matters - and then letting that go, continue. Practice: resolving this small and huge moment.

Awaking from deep sleep and falling into deep sleep, constant and repetetive like breathing, in and out. My senses have been blunted by numbing flu symptoms and I'm unable to appreciate Blake's "immense world of delight". I look forward to recapturing it when I wake tomorrow and "enjoy my time." edited 07:56, 5 Jan 2012