Sunday, March 23, 2014

Sleep

I've been sleeping better. Going to bed listening to guided loving kindness meditations by Sharon Salzberg and Bodhipaksa. Now in the morning I have those voices in my head, alerting me to the energy in my heart.

Still.  I'm feeling restless. Maybe the anxiety of the waning moon.  I don't feel like writing this morning, sure Ben will be waking up any morning.  I do this more out of duty that a real passion for the truth.

I've been feeling that way recently about my practice.  I'm not doing the full hour.  I'm feeling the call of work and things that need to be thought about and worried about.  I don't want to lose my formal practice.  I know from this journal what happens once I let my practice go, whenever I feel like I'm getting somewhere.

I need the insight that practice gives me. Even if it's insight into my state of restlessness.

Ah Ben is up.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

My addiction

So I didn't make it past Friday.

The excuse went this way.  It's too hard to wait to find out what's happening in the final episodes of this series I've been following (okay, it's Girls).  Maybe I can just make that the one thing that I watch. From that came the next episode of Episodes.  From that the end of Parenthood.  All good shows.  And that's what I keep telling myself.  These are all good shows. Shouldn't I be able to watch them?

To which I need to reply.  Yes these are all good shows, but shouldn't I be able to give them up?  These aren't real people and I'm encouraging my son to live a life comforted by entertainment, not comforted by friends and community.

Fresh start today.  I can't just abandon this.  So today I'm going to be on alert for the seductive reasons.

I'm going to go back to Pema Chodron's book on breaking old habits and I'm going to try again.

And I'm going to build new habits.  Primarily evening meditation sessions. How I spend my evenings impacts my day.  Deeply impacts my day. So I want to get back to evenings that are vital and rich with peace. Not drama.

Deep breath.  Once again.

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Happy Tibetan New Year

Today is Tibetan New Year. I'll be heading out to the Tergar Centre to celebrate. But this morning I think of what I want for myself and for others this year.

Peace.  That profound thriving peace that I feel in the centre of my brain when I've been working steadily at my mediation practice. That palpable magnetic energy that is always available to me when I need it. That thing that I still use too rarely in my life.

All people have this. Few people are aware of it. In my current practice it is called Buddah Nature.

This is what I want for myself and everyone.

One of the ways I'm going to stay close to this over the next month, the first month of this year of The Horse, is to re acquaint myself with Lent.  My old Catholic practice of renunciation before re-birth.

Television.  That's what's going for the next forty days. Television.

No more courtroom dramas. No more Girls.  No more Netflix.

Just for this month my greatest entertainment is going to be this peace. Maybe some reading.  But this peace. This peace, if entered into playfully, can be a profound source of entertainment. The human body,and psyche is an endless roller coaster.  Like a video game with blocks and challenges that once met and dissolved bring you to the next level.

No sugar. No television.  Just peace.

Though it might not seem like one, this is another adventure.