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Saturday, March 12, 2011

Day 62

10:00 AM

Practice, practice, practice... We should always practice. Not only in the yoga studio, or on the cushion, we should treat everything as practice. The biggest mistake we make is that we think that some things are important and some are just ordinary. Yoga, Zen, meditation, prayer, and other practices, are very important to us, in some cases essential. Washing dishes, cooking, cleaning, driving, are mostly boring, we can't wait to get them done. However, if our practice is pure, if there is no dualistic ideas, there is no difference between meditation and cooking, both are deep spiritual practice...
We should treat every action as practice. From the moment we wake, until the moment we fall asleep, we are practicing. Devote our full attention to everything, every little action... If cooking, just cook... Leave your mind outside the kitchen and devote yourself entirely to cooking. Put your heart into it, don't cook just to have food on the table. Just as you follow your breath while doing yoga or meditation, follow your hand while cutting vegetables. Running water, oil in the pan, vegetables cooking, hear it all, smell it all...  Love what you are doing, every moment of it. Know that those onions and carrots have the power to lead you to enlightenment... Buddha nature is in every onion, every carrot...

2:00 PM

There is a famous Zen saying: " In everything that you do, you should burn like a good bonfire, all the way, so only ashes remain..."
If you do things with this attitude you will never have a problem. Everything you do, moment to moment, you do it with 100% attention. Leave no traces... All out...
The problem is that most of us like to do two, sometimes three, things at the same time. We can't just concentrate on one thing, especially if its something "ordinary". So we eat and read, drive and talk on the phone, watch TV and brush our teeth... It is too boring to do one thing at the time. "I brush my teeth all the time, its boring to focus on it every day..." Sitting on the meditation cushion, looking at the floor, that is not boring...? What is boring anyway...? It is you being a slave to your mind... No control...
Nevertheless, if you burn like a good bonfire in everything you do, there is no room for boring. There is only room for 100% effort. The mind will not have a door to enter and try to control you. You are burning fully, no traces left behind, no doors open... Total control...
You want enlightenment...? You want to be the master, want to be in the driver seat...? Go brush your teeth...

11:00 PM

Good bonfire in the yoga studio today...

1 comment:

  1. Wow, I never thought of brushing my teeth like that before. It is amazing all the things I take for granted or what I deem as insignificant. I keep looking for the big things to happen. Maybe big things are happening to me, in the little things I do daily.
    Thanks

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