Two Questions

[AlanLa]

I've sort of boiled my day-to-day off-the-cushion Zen practice down to two questions:

1> How satisfied am I with who/what/where I am right now?
Then,
Depending upon the answer to that question,
And because everything changes,
Which means the answer is always in flux,
I need to ask myself,
2> What choice can I make now?
This gives me a chance to live the precepts,
Or not.
But at least I take some ownership of my practice this way.

This is not to say I am good at always asking these questions, or getting good answers to these questions when I do ask them, or even following up on my good answers to these questions. But even with setting that low bar of success, I do find this successfully workable for me.

[Jundo]

Lovely! Good Precepts Practice!

One may also ask simultaneously WHO is there to be satisfied or dissatisfied with CHOICELESS WHAT right now?

Gassho, J

[Nindo]

Good advice, Al.

[AlanLa]

When I boil it down some more,
that will be the question,
just not there yet,
Jundo.

[Mp]

These are great questions Al ... thank you. =)

Gassho
Shingen

[Meikyo]

Wonderful. Thank you.

Gassho

[Rich]

What is this?

Kind regards. /\

[Juki]

I keep a yellow Post-It note inside my wallet on which I have written a single question. I refer to it often, whenever I need to step back, take a breath and reflect. It reads as follows: "what is my highest intention in the present moment?"

its far far too early in my practice to say that this is my only "off the cushion" practice. But it is a reliable reminder.

Gassho,
Juki

[Geika]

Hmm... you're on to something, Juki.

[AlanLa]

Change a few words, combine Rich's and Juki's comments here, and you've got my original post.
It's nothing original. We all find our own way to do this, be it with one question or two, or whatever.
All good stuff.