My improvement!
Hô Ki
My second time In Antaiji, i've been here last year for two and a half months, and here i am again. Muho asked us to write something about adult practice, i dont know if this has something to do with it but i have seen some little changes In my practice and i want to write about it.
One point is that even if Zazen becomes long or my knees hurts Im not waiting for the bell to sound, at least before this was almost each sittig and now almost never.
Other point is that when we do samu im not calculating the time for break or for lunch, and Im also not calculating what im gonna eat first and what In gonna leave for last so i enjoy best the food. I dont hesitate to get out of bed when the jikido start runing with the bell At 3:45 am, that was always hard for me. And maybe some such insignificants things like that.
Well this may sound quite stupid, more if we are speaking about adult practice, but i feel that it has something to do with a more important change, i feel that somehow Im starting to realize and accept what many teachers were saying all the time, that practice is not about searching something special, but rather has to do with ordinary life; accepting life as it is is our practice, accepting ourselves as ordinary persons too, and this make me not so anxious about things that in the end doesnt matter too much so i feel Im naturaly more focussed In dialy activities. Maybe this accepting the life as it is, even with its sufferings and pain, is opening hand of thought? I dont know...i feel still a lot of work to do In the zafu! This year its my 10th year of Zazen practice (not so hard but quite constant) and how you can see my improvement is not so amazing, 10 years of Zazen for that??? But the real thing is i dont think i will improve much more, but still im thinking that i will practice 10 years more, hope you are thinking about it too!
Hô Ki