Managing what?

Quick thoughts this morning, getting ready to go for acupuncture, then for an important blood draw.

Putting away clothes, I think, "It only takes a minute."  Takes a minute.  The phrase implies that there is a thing that is a minute, a chunk of time - so this is language forming the way we think.  "To take a minute" is to grab a chunk out of this flowing river named "time."

Then I thought, I spend so much time on time management.  Whoops.  To spend time.

Then, "to manage time."  It isn't time I manage at all, it's myself.  My actions.

Miss Shud likes to try to manage me/my time.  In the morning she starts right in with principles like, You should read dharma and meditate first thing in the morning.

I argue with her.  That is, Me - this body/mind.  She craves to check my e-mail, like a child waiting for the mail to come -and bring - maybe - a present.  (Have you noticed, e-mail seldom does.)  Body-mind tend to win over Miss Shud's principles.

Yet, what is the place of self-discipline?  Managing the self, unpleasant thought, let's see, choosing what to do right now.  Choosing.  You have to quiet the dialogue of of Shud and Me.  What do I really want to do right now?  An AA person I know says "Just do the next right thing."  I reply, "Just do this right thing."

And isn't that the whole point of spiritual practice or, if you like, of sobriety or self-improvement? - you want to do what you're doing with a whole heart, you want to choose, you want to remain aware.

And now I am relieved of all this thinking because I have to go to the Chinese doctor.  The drive takes 15 minutes.  A handy concept.
[image:  summer texture - just that, nothing more]