That is a terrific post Greg -clear, simple and informative. If you wish to start a dharma thread I wil read it with much interest. Thank you.
agreed on all counts and I would love to participate in a Dharma discussion.
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That is a terrific post Greg -clear, simple and informative. If you wish to start a dharma thread I wil read it with much interest. Thank you.
caesar wrote:How do you people balance between seated meditation...tai chi, qi gong, and zz? Do you feel that if some day you do a lot of zz, you kinda are doing the same work as in for example zazen...or vice versa? I've been busy and unmotivated lately and doing a lot of zazen and only some stretching in addition.
Not sure 'balance' is the right word here. I don't do more of one if I do less of another, if that's what you mean. I have a kind of schedule. When I get up I do surya namaskar (sun salutation yoga) just to limber up before I have breakfast and go to work.
However, I quite often work on a stance or a transition throughout the day in unobtrusive (I hope!) ways and places - I have been known to push the shopping cart while mud stepping (what? sometimes you just cannot help yourself and get taken by the moment)
Regarding ZZ, I consider it a distinct and separate practice to my sitting meditation - different focus and all that.
I usually do abuot 15 minutes of qigong & zz before my morning sitting. I find the movement helps wake my body up and puts my head in a good place to sit.
Zazen, on the other hand, is for me more about observing my mind's movement, my tendency to attach to my thoughts, and the urges I get to act on those thoughts.
If you don't mind, can you share a bit more about where the lack of motivation might be coming from?
And an old priest said, "Speak to us of Religion."
And he said:
Have I spoken this day of aught else?
Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?
Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?
Who can spread his hours before him, saying, "This for God and this for myself;
This for my soul, and this other for my body?"
All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.
He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.
The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.
And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.
The freest song comes not through bars and wires.
And he to whom worship is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.
Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.
Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute,
The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight.
For in revery you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures.
And take with you all men:
For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself
lower than their despair.
And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.
Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.
And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.
You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.
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