Sustaining a Practice

Dear Still Water Friends,

It’s 10:30pm, I’m tired, and I am so wishing I hadn’t waited until now to write this email! It’s going to be a short one.
 
Tomorrow we will have our monthlyStill Water orientation for newcomers at 6:30pm. Beginners, seasoned practitioners,and everyone in between are most welcome.
 
And during our dharma discussion at 8pm, I’d like to invite you into a conversation about sustaining a practice – thejoy, gratitude, frustration, anxiety,acceptance, self-judgment, and whatever else comes up as we try tonurture a lifelongmindfulness practice. What works for you and what doesn’t. How yourbody, mind, and heart work together — or at cross-purposes. Think ofit as “open mike” for anyone who wantsto share.

See you then!

Warmly,
Peter Cook

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Wehave to go back to our society with the intention to rebuild societyand enrich its life by offering the appropriate therapies for itsillnesses. I would like to offer an exercise that can help to do this.It is called Touching the Earth.

In each of us,there are many kinds of ideas, notions, attachments, anddiscrimination. This practice involves bowing down and touching theEarth, emptying ourselves, and surrendering to Earth.

You touch the Earth with your forehead, your two hands, your two feet,and you surrender to your true nature, accepting any form of life yourtrue nature offers you. Surrender your pride, hopes, ideas, fears, andnotions. Empty yourself of all resentment you feel toward anyone.Surrender everything, and empty yourself completely. To do this is thebest way to replenish yourself. If you do not exhale and empty yourlungs, how can fresh air enter?

                                                               Thich Nhat Hanh

 

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