Time for a Break

I'm trying to do a million things (well, four projects) all at once, and I'm becoming fretful. I have been forgetting things (like the time when my Japanese class meets).

This morning I picked up this contract I'm working on; I looked at the incredible scrawl—and the words "This is my mind," came forth.

Everything jumbles at once, in this life of trying to cobble something together, needing to survive and needing to stay true to a deeper call. It is well and truly time for a break.

In the monastery, you may be exhausted, but you do one thing, not twelve. You work hard, but you do not have to strategize your life. You have very little, but you know you will eat.

Thinking I would go to sesshin at Great Vow this week, I had requested time off from the store—an expensive proposition that hit me hard last time. As the date approached, it became clear that transportation would be difficult (and expensive). Plus there will be a jukai ceremony here, in Corvallis, on Sunday morning.

Happlily, none of this is a problem, because there happens to be a zendo in my back garden! So this afternoon I'll be starting my own three-day retreat, supported by my housemates Rob and Mushin.

My intention is to relax, completely. To become a natural human, to return to a state before words. To just. Sit.
Dig/dirt.
Be/breath/body.

Yes.

To be grateful, and—not knowing the future—to pre-remember bountiful good fortune; to sense just-the-right-thing on the horizon; to be open and ready, knowing the way will open and become clear.

Gassho—to everything, everywhere.