Well, I wanted to give an update because it's been nice to have this blog be a little more active lately. I don't have that much to say about my practice. It's been kind of a plateau feeling lately, just grinding a long with a bit of demotivated feeling somehow...
I am still faithfully doing 20 minutes a day and occasionally I will find myself breathing and paying attention at odd times in the day. And it feels good and right and then I just lose that thread and go back to being an unconscious buffoon.
Seems I still have those same lessons to keep learning, eh?
Also, thanks to everyone who has taken my "breathing challenge" that was posted previously. It seems that at least one or two people have gotten something out of it. I'd be curious to hear impressions from anyone else who feels the nagging curiosity to try it...
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I've *sort of* tried it—on those weekend retreats I've been on. The idea there is that you're with your practice all the time, ideally even when sleeping.
The interesting thing was that after a while, the practice started to stay with me. My breath became a continuous thread, rising and falling, with no sense of a pause between inhalations and exhalations, and at some level at least I was continuously aware of it, to at least some degree, even when doing other stuff. That stayed with me for some days after the retreat, before I became my usual unconscious buffoon again.
Not coincidentally, I felt better, and functioned better, while that was going on than I feel normally. A great deal, even.
There's no way I could come close to that (at this point) without frequent rounds of zazen to bring me back to it. To do that as you're attempting, now, that would be something.
And yeah, it is very encouraging for someone who's only been at this for a year and change to hear that it's not easy even after ten years. So thanks (again).
It's not easy after ten years, but I don't know that it's any harder after 1 year. We all have the capability to take one breath in this moment right now, and be aware of it. And that's the biggest thing I've learned.
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