Wednesday, February 24, 2010

A new practice

Vows or intentions come upon me, rise like yeast bubbles, and there they are. This one is to spend from 10:00 a.m. to 12 noon Monday thru Friday on my writing. That's writing, leaving blogging aside, because I'd become aware that writing a post was usually taking an hour and a half.

Practice, what is practice? It is an activity undertaken in a disciplined way with the end of advancing spiritually. Now, I don't like that word "advancing," so say "with the end of being with Oneself." Many people say "with the Divine." I don't think like that. In Soto Zen there is supposedly no end, just sit like a frog. Your reflections on what a practice is, and why, are welcome.

This entry isn't going to take me long because I'm not going to go down that beckoning path. But indeed, going back to making my (real) writing a top priority does represent some kind of long-worked gradual awakening for me. Doing your real work, that's a practice for a great many artists and writers, and not enough normal people.

3 comments:

  1. One thing that comes to mind when I think about what practice is something my yoga teacher says. "The real yoga [or practice] starts when you want to come out of the pose." That the real practice begins when you want to get out or stop because something is hard but you figure out how to surrender and stay. It's when you make your least favorite pose your favorite.

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  2. I've started a new practice as well, called, practice. It is a remembering of being HERE and not being somewhere else. And less blogging, too. Yes, it does take time to write a post.

    Write lots :-)

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  3. Someone somewhere said, the "successful" meditation is the one where you don't get up and walk away, called by the urge to dust the bookshelf NOW.

    I've been walking around with blog posts in my head. Also deciding that actuallly writing them down would take me away from my practice.
    Instead they sometimes find their way out into the world as little dharma talks at the beginning of yoga class.

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