I've decided to take on Tricycle magazine's 90-day Zen Meditation Challenge. I haven't been sitting much lately, and this "Commit To Sit" seems to strike the right Type-A cords in my life. Here's what it entails:- Sit in formal meditation (zazen) for 20 minutes each day.
- Listen to one dharma talk online each week.
- Study Dogen's Genjokoan.
- Commit to the sixteen bodhisattva precepts
I try desperately to maintain a balance between my intellectual, physical, and spiritual pursuits, but sometimes I get a bit out of whack, like I am now. I've just spent almost twenty weeks dedicated to my paramedic certifications, I'm training like a fiend for the upcoming triathlon season, but I've let my spiritual side slide a bit. Time to bring things back into shape.
2 comments:
I studied under the venerable Roshi Suzuki at the Bush Street Zendo way back in the early 1960's. It was an important element in my life. All of us lived communally in an apartment building a few blocks away since there was no dormitories. Walking group meditation to and from our daily 'devotions'. Small portions of bland food, and long, long periods of sitting early morning, and well into the nights. The highlight was our interview with the Master, and his guidance.
Then I went AWOL to a local Coffee House, met my future wife and a new chapter began... not as a priest, or monk, but as a householder. It may be rationalization, but I think Buddhism today is more in need of devout householders than priests. Oh well...........
Enjoy San Francisco, its an enjoyable town. My youngest son's family live there; up by Golden Gate Park.
Joyful journeys and may you gain spiritual enlightenment with this "Commit to Sit". Maintaining a balance is certainly challenging.
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