Tag: journal
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Time and control
Today I began to understand the deep relation between time and fear, between time and control. If the swirling, distracting …
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Equanimity
24 August, 2023. What trumps the conscious mind is equanimity. What do we mean in common parlance when we …
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The smile
8 August, 2023. A melange of experiences in today’s zazen: I don’t know if writing about them can possibly …
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Wu-wei, again
6 August, 2023. In my sitting just ended I believe I understood wu-wei as a meditation practice, and as an …
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The conscious mind
1 August, 2023. Today the conscious mind would not yield. A frustrating sitting, after a few in which I felt …
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The hara
25 July, 2023. A small, fragile breakthrough today: in the course of sitting I had my fullest experience yet of …
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Three early entries
These three early entries in my journal capture in part the spirit and questions with which I approached a renewal …
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All thought in words
16 May, 2023. I find that all thought is in and of words. If there are words in your head …
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Non-action at the end
9 May, 2023. I continue to be haunted by that moment in Cuillin’s euthanizing when he tried to break free …
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Dog and Tao
1 May, 2023. My meditation has calmed, at least as of yesterday and again today. Though I have said before …
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Can’t call it meditation
24 April, 2023. I can’t even call it meditation now, what I do. Since Cuillin died the best I can …
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Ill health and meditation
23 March, 2023. Here ends, I hope, the hiatus of five or six weeks in my writing of this …
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Distractions and spontaneity
1 December, 2022. A gentle, welcoming sitting today. This was brought about by a confluence of events and readings. One …
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Two Days, Two Meditations
23 and 24 June, 2022. Two days, two meditations. Yesterday I could experience nothing but my own stray thoughts. …
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No bad meditations
3 January, 2023. Perhaps there are no bad meditations. A couple of weeks ago and more I would have called …
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No work to be done
7 July, 2022. A good strong meditation practice today: full relaxed breaths came easily from the start, and remained that …
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Expect nothing
30 December, 2022. Expect nothing. That is what I said to myself as I sat down to zazen yesterday morning. …
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A shift of my hands
Meditated without headphones or music today, for I felt sure of a sustained isolation and silence. Returned to cross-legged sitting …
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The Woodpecker
27 July, 2022. The world is not the illusion. I am the illusion. First real day of meditation at the …
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Shikan-taza
7 February, 2023. I have written little in the journal for a couple of weeks now, probably because my meditation …
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How I Meditate
In a quiet place, darker than it is light. I need silence, and since silence is so rare, I manufacture …
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Why I Meditate
A troubled world. A troubled mind. A Christian upbringing. An atheist turn in adolescence, solidified in adulthood. Still, I had …
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Two meditation instructions from Dogen
“Without taking notice of the slander of others, without paying heed to the resentment of others, without expressing approval or …