108 Days

Jan 31 - 77 Days to Go

Time magazine has been doing some articles on the health benefits of meditation. U Mass Medical Center has some research. You can see it on their site. Jon Kabat-Zinn has spearheaded some of it. His bio on their website says:

Dr. Kabat-Zinn's major research pursuits lie in the emerging field of mind / body medicine, with the focus on the clinical, social, and human performance effects of mindfulness meditation training in various populations. These include people with chronic pain, stress related disorders, and / or a wide range of chronic diseases with a particular focus on breast cancer; multi-ethnic and multi-racial inner city communities experiencing high psychosocial stress due to poverty and associated social conditions; and inmates and corrections personnel in the prison system. Other areas of research are directed at the effects of regulated attention on healing processes; stress in medical education; cost-effectiveness of mind / body interventions; stress related to work and organizational re-engineering; the tao of work; mindfulness in the physician-patient relationship; the development of psychological resilience to stress; mindfulness-based stress reduction curricula and their implementation in the primary and secondary education; achieving optimal performance in athletes through mindfulness meditation training.

Jan 30th 78 Days to Go

On Sunday, one student asked if he shoule practice or read books on the dharma--or both. My teacher used to say, "Read just until you feel inspired to sit. Then sit." Other thoughts on this?

Jan 29th - 70 days to go

What an interesting week. Work in two countries, chaos from every corner. Has your week been like this? When I went to meditation Sunday night, several people said it had been a week with odd energy and lots of challenges. In times like these, it's easy to sit for me, one little place of sanity in a vortex of craziness.

How to Establish a Daily Sitting Practice

A Zen practitioner-therapist offers this advice for a daily practice on the website When Things Fall Apart presumably named after the book by Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron.

Before you sit:

As with all things, start where you are. You have everything you need right now. First, decide to sit every day, (this may sound easy, in fact it often proves to be one of the most difficult aspects to adhere to). Next, plan the time, place and duration for your sitting meditation.

Choosing a time to sit:

Morning is often best because the mind is calmer than it is later in the day. However, the best time is the time you can commit to on a regular basis. If one longer sit isn't possible, try two shorter ones.

Choosing a space:

There is no perfect place. If possible, dedicate a space exclusively to your daily sitting. Choose a relatively quiet space where you can leave your cushion (or chair) so that it is always there for you to return to. You may want to create an altar with a candle, inspiring photograph or statue. These are not necessary, but they can be beneficial if they motivate you.

Choosing the duration of each sitting:

Sit for as long as you are comfortable, plus an extra 5 minutes. This is a general guide, not a rule. Even fifteen or twenty minutes will seem an eternity in the beginning, but that impression will change with time. If you sit each day, you will experience noticeable benefits...and be able to increase your sitting time.

I am off today to San Ramon, California. It's snowing here, so I was home this morning with my children and will sit this evening in California. The one good thing about travel is the luxurious amount of time that one has sometimes in the evenings in the hotel. Blessings everywhere. Even in the Marriott Hotel. :) See you tomorrow, from home again :)

Jan 27th -- 80 Days to Go

Sit. Sit. Sit. Or talk a little about why you can't.

Jan 26th -- 82 Days to Go

"If there is something you truly want to know, then you truly want to listen to your own wisdom. You know, meditation is learning how to listen with your own wisdom, so that you can see. I think why meditation is amazingly important, is that somehow our unconscious world is much bigger. It is huge, universal, and we don't understand that one. Meditation allows this world to be light and knowable, understandable.
That is why it is important. Normally we are totally robbed by the egotistic, conventional mind, not allowing the fundamental mind to be functioning. That is why one should have confidence, truly... through experience,
one has confidence in one's spiritual journey."
--Lama Thubten Yeshe

Jan 24th -- 84 days to go

Hello from Barrie, Ontario, Canada. I was working in Panama City, Florida and didn't get in till 2:30 AM yesterday, so I didn't create a post for you this morning (I confess, I slept). But I hope you were sitting, or thinking about sitting, or thinking about thinking about sitting. We have to hold each other up like this.

Tonight I will. The actual teaching site is fairly remote and the lake outside is completely frozen over. They say tomorrow it will be a few degrees below zero. Since I came with a suit and heels, I can't really venture out--so sitting is the thing left to do.

Cheers. Log in if we haven't heard from you in awhile. Have you gotten off track? Use us to get back on track. Speak up. We're listening.

One Single Puzzle

What is this true meditation? It is to make everything: coughing, swallowing, waving the arms, motion, stillness, words, action, the evil and the good, prosperity and shame, gain and loss, right and wrong, into one single koan.

--Hakuin Ekaku, 1686 -1769

You May Awaken

From the grand blog, Whiskey River

"The sounds of streams
are Buddha’s speech.
The colored mountains
are Buddha’s pure body.
Night brings eighty-four
thousand poems of Buddha.
Listen, someday you may awaken."
- Su Shih

January 20 - 88 Days to Go

“…What I like doing best is Nothing.”

“How do you do Nothing,” asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time.

“Well, it’s when people call out at you just as you’re going off to do it, ‘What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?’ and you say,”Oh, Nothing,” and then you go and do it.”

“It means just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”

“Oh!” said Pooh.

♦ A.A. Milne

Dharma everywhere. :) Thank you for sitting, or thinking about sitting or thinking about thinking about sitting.