no new beginning.

I am kicking my Buddhist practice back to the highest it's ever been, which just means that I consistently do some amount of zazen meditation each day (if I just sit my ass on the cushion and breathe for a few minutes, that counts), and reading the Heart Sutra out loud every night.

This is, by my standards, not a very intense Buddhist practice, even throwing aikido into the mix. But it's what I've got, and it's enough to keep my head clear and my spirit present--if not wholly free of anxiety and doubt, then able to ignore them and let them pass away. I can barely articulate the endless benefits of this, but they include being happy and keeping my relationship vibrant and alive. Except, don't think about that while practicing. Really. You can't practice to make yourself happy. Practice is just for itself, and happy might come. Sad comes too. Or nothing comes. You just keep practicing. I guess you can think of happy, just not while practicing. Or not as part of the practice. Just practice.

Sometimes I'm amazed anyone ever gets interested in Zen at all, the way I try to explain it to people. I can do a better job than that last paragraph, but not much.

I ate too much today, which I've not done in a while, which along with drinking lots of water is probably why I seem to have lost a little bit of weight (ooh, maybe I'm all the way down to 210 lbs.). I was bored and hot today, so I had a sort of perpetual hunger going on. I did try to eat some meat instead of macaroni and cheese or something. I hate summer.

I'm still marveling at the way I can inhabit my body now--except that still makes it sound like there's a "me" and it's a passenger in this physical incarnation, when in reality there's just "me" and the body and mind and spirit are not really separate, which is why emotional crap manifests as tight muscles and misaligned joints. I'm astonished, and have been for months, that I can move my hips now, independently of my torso or my legs. I use my hips to go up stairs now, to save wear and tear on my knees. I also use my back leg to get up from a kneeling position, so I'm not doing a leg press with my quadricep--so much of this is learning to use everything in more efficient, comfortable ways. My hips are much stronger and fluid than my knees, so much better choices for getting me up stairs and hills, if I can enlist them.

Amazing thing, this experience of being human.