Zen Sitting
Photo Credit: JD Lasica
If you can achieve “just sitting,” you’ll know you are moving in the right direction.
- The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Zen Living
Since beginning with Zen, I’ve been consistent with sitting. I started with five minutes the first week, and have increased the time by five minutes each week since. This morning was my first morning at 20 minutes.
I’m finding that at these longer intervals that my limit is not my capacity to sit quietly, but that my back, legs and shoulders start to become fatigued. If I’m going to continue this, I really am going to have to start some “core strength” exercise. the whole story…
Dejunking, the Next Level
“You can’t take it with you.”
- George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart (Play title, 1938)
I’ve cleaned out my desk, my office, the kitchen counters and cabinets. Last week, when we had to move some furniture to get it out of the way of the living room ceiling leak, we took the opportunity to clear out a whole bookshelf. We donated the books to the library and put the shelf on the front walk with a “free” sign taped to the front. It was gone within 15 minutes. Reuse rate: 100%. the whole story…
Old House, New Projects
“Something old,
something new,
something borrowed,
something blue.”
–Common advice for what a bride should wear at her wedding.
Something Old. Our house has a cornerstone that dates the first part of the structure to 1873. There are several discernible additions and alterations, though none can be dated quite as definitively. The upstairs bathroom, in the grand scheme of things, is fairly recent. But the plumbing there is what failed, exposing the knob-and-tube wiring that runs under the toilet drain, when on Sunday afternoon the plumber gently pressed a finger on the sagging, dripping ceiling panel in the living room below, and the whole thing gave way. We had signs of a leak in June, and thought when they fixed a dripping sink faucet earlier this summer that we had it taken care of. But it never did dry out, and then, Saturday, there was water dripping into Silas’s toy bin below. Sunday morning we all took sponge baths in the kitchen sink before heading off to church. the whole story…