2012.01.23 _ 35

Standing meditation in the morning, after bringing the kids to school.

Some ideas came up again as well - wrote them down. Not a full 15 minutes of writing yet, but it's a start.

201201230718
Sat for meditation at 06.38, much earlier than usual, and decided, for once, not to use the alarm. A luxury of time. After about 20 minutes, I caught a glimpse of the icy glow of the new day and was pulled back inside. It felt like some black emperor of telluric tranquillity was sitting in my body. A deep peace was bathing my cells, my mind running happily after the sensation and freezing it into the words: "black emperor", in English weirdly. Was already writing this I suppose for you fellow travellers :) {So grateful for this sounding board Wol.} When I opened my eyes again it was 07:18. On January 23rd of 2012: hence 201201230718. #timestamp

Yes, I figured where your time stamps came from, Eden, but I just enjoyed the particular pattern yesterday :-)
This morning I focused down on a new kind of koan for me, in my time practice: how to practice without practicing; how to be engaged continuously without any trace of trying to improve anything. Old theme, new inspiration.

Noticing how my mind has layers and layers of ways to try to be in charge of my meditation, a bit like Pema, if i understand him right. Always wanting to add strategies and techniques when it is easier to let them all drop away - if it would let us.

Am struck, on my 3rd anniversary of signing into Second Life, by themes of fresh eyes... lively discussions emerging on personal and group levels about abandoning coarse efforts... Zen teasing Boxy this morning about old dogs and new tricks. For me there is a reflecting out of themes of Rest, indeed my chosen 99 days exploration this round, is simply that... being attentive to resting when needed, which appears to take more forms than I could have guessed at... so surprising because just too easy. At the beginning of a sutra text I like is the phrase "happily dwelling conduct" and somehow this speaks to, for me, a further opening / letting go of strategic efforts in favor of the present and spontaneous, which doesn't exclude deep or near-traditional practices but unfolds more and more in a joyful and easy wu-wei way.

Turbulence the wave itself the constantly recurring reminder, of what constantly slips and hits. Nothing else no better place. Stuff happening. Blizzard.