Hodgepodge 111/365 - Sitting

Today, a quote, from Natalie Goldberg's The Great Spring: Writing, Zen, and the Zigzag Life, which I have not read (I have a love-hate relationship with Natalie and so probably will not). But I like this quote. Especially as I ramp up—once I get work out of my life one last time—to try, try, try yet again to launch a sitting practice. At least I can find comfort in the fact that I won't be struggling like her for forty years. I will not live that long. If, however, the Buddhists are correct and we are reincarnated, and I come back as a human (a better one, I would hope), I will try to institute a sitting practice in a timely manner, such that maybe I, too, can speak in terms of decades.

Okay. Here's the quote.

Tasting Your Own Mind

More than four decades is a long time to be engaged in one activity. Have I managed to do meditation every day no matter what? No. Have I often experienced states of bliss that kept me going? No. Did my knees hurt? Yes. Did my shoulders ache? Yes. Was I sometimes filled with anger, aggression, tormented by old ragged memories? Yes. Did I burn with sexual desire, crave a hot fudge sundae so bad my teeth ached? Yes.

Why did I do it? What kept me going? First, I liked that it was so simple, so dumb, so direct, so different from the constant rush of our human life. When I sat I wasn’t hurrying toward anything. The whole world, my entire inner life, was coming home to me. I was tasting my own mind; I was beginning a true relationship with myself. This was good—and it was inexpensive. All I needed was my breath, a cushion or chair, a little time.