RETREAT!!!
Well, the good kind (although if you ask somebody armed with a spoon while being shot at if their retreat is a "good" kind, they'll most likely say "Why yes. Yes it is...")
Anyway, baring weather (which is rather funky here in the PNW at the moment) I'll be gone from tomorrow (Fri) afternoon until (effectively) Monday morning on a weekend seshin (Zen meditation retreat) at the monastery our sangha is attached to. Lots of staring at the wall. O! how we love to stare at the wall...
Seriously, though; my zen practice is becoming more and more important to me as time goes on. With the dissolution of my marriage, having to move out of my house, and all the rest, being able to wrap my head around the idea that even the most "important" things in our lives are made merely of smoke is actually quite comforting. You get less upset by the perturbances of life if you can understand and accept that, as William Blake said; "nothing lasts, but nothing is lost..."
See you all on Monday...
-zt
Well, the good kind (although if you ask somebody armed with a spoon while being shot at if their retreat is a "good" kind, they'll most likely say "Why yes. Yes it is...")
Anyway, baring weather (which is rather funky here in the PNW at the moment) I'll be gone from tomorrow (Fri) afternoon until (effectively) Monday morning on a weekend seshin (Zen meditation retreat) at the monastery our sangha is attached to. Lots of staring at the wall. O! how we love to stare at the wall...
Seriously, though; my zen practice is becoming more and more important to me as time goes on. With the dissolution of my marriage, having to move out of my house, and all the rest, being able to wrap my head around the idea that even the most "important" things in our lives are made merely of smoke is actually quite comforting. You get less upset by the perturbances of life if you can understand and accept that, as William Blake said; "nothing lasts, but nothing is lost..."
See you all on Monday...
-zt