If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.
Thank you everyone who participated, knowing we've all come together and seeing all the squares is real motivation booster. Making what ordinarily would seem an impossible task, sitting for such an extended period consecutively, all the more possible.
Please excuse any indication that I am trying to teach anything. I am a priest in training and have no qualifications or credentials to teach Zen practice or the Dharma.
I had a teaching commitment so I missed the live session.
It's interesting that it's easy for me to attend once I decide to participate, but with the recording that I can play any time it was harder to set aside the time.
Sat
--
Hōkan = 法閑 = Dharma Serenity
To be entirely clear, I am not a hōkan = 幇間 = taikomochi = geisha, but I do wonder if my preceptor was having a bit of fun with me...
I am in the best shape I've been in since I was in 2000 when I gave up smoking. That year began a down slide because I thought I had finlly conquored all addictive behaviors. There began a slide into debt. Also, co-depemdency plagued our every move. She told me what to do because she was making the money to support us in every way. I spent money from my psrt-time job, and all my disability money, then I spent our hosehhold money. That leads us to this year when I fiinally have taken responssssibility. Ironically last March the same momth I paid off a $5200 loan, I had taken out to pay off my own credit card debt another good and long story, I fell down the basement stairs causing concussion and seven stiches to my head and Arterial Venius Malformation in my Right Termporal Lobe of my brain. This was accidently picked up when Kyosui my dear friend and a nurse convinced us to travel into Sioux Falls to the ER, because of siezures from AVM, to Sanford Health Hospita. All my records are this the September. On september 19th at 9:10 AM the surgeon Dr Voum, spet a little mor ethe risks and benifits of removal all in one hour explaining the risks and benifits of removing thids deadly AVM.Now I have brokrn thr addiction by deciding for mself to face brain sugery sometime the week after next with the agreement of all my doctors. My Theripist, my Physical therpist botth say I am ready. This Friday night, USA Central Daylight Time I will attend the Zazenkai if at all posible. I have made promises in the past which I have not kept. I say, the dept addiction and co-ddependancy are finally under control one day at a time. My last purchase made without thinking is a radio for my father who at age 91 remarried last year so the two of them can take care of each other as they get ready to die. I am facing life threyening journery myself. I've given my father a radio which he does not need, but this is given out of love. At Christmas time I will make a gesture for his wife to show them a gesture o recognition for both of them. This Fiday night I will be free all exceept my surgery which I know will be painful to my Ankylosing Spondylitis, on of the most painful forms of arthritis, and I will be okay, I will feel this stabbing cutting paain and not cry out. I have learned to relieve pain with meditation. Today in 18 minutes I am practicing shikantaza while sitting with Onkai.
Gassho
sat/ lah
Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆
Comment