Category Archives: discipline

This is Real Life

Fiona writes: Yesterday, my computer broke.

I’m typing this on Kaspa’s computer. He’s just left for work, having spent 5 hours trying to get mine to work and so-far-failing. He has LOTS of things to do. So do I. We’re both behind. This is real life.

On Sunday we went to a Chinese dragon dance. We ate Chinese before-hand, which I’d been looking forward to all week. The vegetarian options were odd fake beef, chips & very spicy noodles. I hate spicy food. (The dragons were magnificent.) This is real life.

You might have been taking part in our River of Stones, noticing something every day and writing it down. When we started on January the 1st, 244 posted one of their small stones on our daily post. Yesterday there were 55. Life gets in the way of all our best intentions. This is real life.

Unfortunately, real life is all we have. You might never move into a bigger house. Your computer might never recover. There might never be more time to write that novel or take one of our ecourses. You have to use this house, someone else’s computer, this day.

It doesn’t matter if you said you were going to write small stones and you didn’t. You can write one today. You can learn a little bit more about what gets in the way. You can listen to the wisdom of our guest bloggers. You can share what you’re struggling with and ask for help.

“The future is always beginning now.”
~Mark Strand

That’s NOW.

Tomorrow we’ll have a final round-up post – do come & share your small stone with us tomorrow, even if it’ll be the first you’ve written all month : )

Photo by Jim Nix via Creative Commons, with gratitude.

How to get things done (I’ve said this before – and it’s still true)

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Kaspa writes: It would be lovely if I could just learn something once, and then have it learnt for good. However I find myself discovering the same things over and over again.

A few days ago Fiona and I were talking about moving house again. For a while we’d been toying with the idea of moving to a more rural, remote, location. A place where we could step out of the front door and into the countryside, instead of out into the street as we do now. In the end we decided to stay where we are, there are lots of good things about where we are now, and we hadn’t seen anything that ticked all of our boxes.

The decision to stay motivated us to think about how we use the space here. Could we be more settled in this house?

We bought two new (pre-loved) sofas for the sitting room. We moved one of our old sofas up into the office, and got rid of the other one. We moved the uncomfortable cane sofa that was in the office out into the conservatory and set about making the office into a livable space. If this winter is as cold as last winter, we’ll retreat up here away from the draughty single glazed sitting room…

The last big job was to sort though all the accumulated stuff on the shelves, and in the drawers of my desks… There were piles of papers I hadn’t looked at since I’d heaped them on the shelves, over a year ago, back when we moved in.

Last Sunday evening, after our furniture shuffle, my energy ran out. I knew that I’d got meetings on Monday (or thought I had, see Monday’s post: We all get things wrong sometimes) and we both had plenty of work to do on Tuesday. We earmarked Wednesday for the big sort out.

On Monday evening I was working in the office. Fiona was sitting up here too, looking at the mess on the shelves, thinking about starting to clear them. She said that she was going to make a start… An hour later, when I had finished my job, she was still sitting on the sofa… I can hardly blame her really. I didn’t want to start then, either…

On Tuesday Fiona was busy seeing clients all day. I did some writing in the morning, ran some errands in town, and then settled into some study. All the time ignoring the looming mess in the corner.

I’m re-reading Zen Therapy by David Brazier. One line jumped out at me. Of course I can’t find that line today, as I flick through the pages – but here’s another in the same spirit:

The way of Zen is supremely practical. Although we tie ourselves up in knots with our ideas and feelings, the way through generally begins with acting purposefully now. Know your purpose at this moment and there is no difficulty in knowing what to do. Paradoxically, perhaps, being able to act in this way means letting go of trying to control tomorrow or yesterday. Simply do the right thing now.

I put the book down and started sorting the shelves out.

I packed up around 30 books to be recycled (off to the amnesty bookshop later) and got rid of huge amounts of stuff. It wasn’t long before Fiona appeared. Together we created a space we can both live with. The essentials are stored on the shelves, the books we want to read are there, as well some beautiful objects we wanted to display. Job done.

We sat back and enjoyed the clean space. We enjoyed knowing that that we’d now have the whole of Wednesday free…. (I’m working at the weekend, so today is ‘our day’)… of course it’s now mid-morning and I’m writing a blog post while Fiona catches up on email…

In our hearts we often know what our purpose in this moment is. Whether it’s simply sorting through a years worth of junk, or joining the occupy movement, or baking a cake for a friend. In my experience the courage to take the first step comes with taking the first step. Simply do the right thing now.

If you want to explore Zen philosophy, and getting things done, think about joining my Eastern Therapeutic Writing course. It’s a month long, and we’ll also look at deepening our relationships with others through naikan and writing Japanese poetry…

It starts on Monday. More details here. (or email me)

(photo by cometstarmoon)

Planting Seeds: Self-discipline or surrender?

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I have a dilemma. And it is as familiar to me as the ring I’ve worn on my finger since I was thirteen years old.

I’ve been struggling recently to do spiritual practise in the morning. I used to affiliate myself with Zen Buddhism, which meant sitting up straight on my zafu for twenty minutes and noticing my breath (I never managed to make it any longer) and then I could forget about it completely and get on with my day.

Now I’m a Pureland Buddhist, it doesn’t seem that simple any more. When we practise, we chant, sit quietly, walk in meditation, read out texts, make prostrations. Not only that, but when I speak to my mentor about practice he talks about it as being a way of expressing our gratitude, not as ‘a route to enlightenment’ or something we ought to do to be good spiritual beings.

My old practice seemed to be about ‘doing my duty’ as a Zen practitioner, but now I’m being asked (or rather I’m asking myself) to do something very different. And I find myself not knowing how to do it, and not wanting to do it.

My dilemma – do I ‘force myself’ to do some practice every morning, or do I allow myself to start practising again when I feel the urge?

Self-discipline or surrender?

I know what would happen if I wrote whenever I felt the urge, whenever I felt like it. I would never have finished a single chapter, never mind four novels.

But I do want to leave space for myself, to feel my way with this new practice, to see what emerges.

I’ve decided to do ten minutes of chanting every morning – the same chant, which is designed to connect me to something bigger than my little self. I will sit and chant quietly, whether I feel like it or not, and then we’ll see what happens.

Things to be curious about:

Choose an area of your life that you’re struggling with. Would it benefit from a smidgeon of discipline? How could you support yourself to make a new (modest) commitment in this area?

Quotes:

For an interest to be rewarding, one must pay in discipline and dedication, especially through the difficult or boring stages which are inevitably encountered.

Mira Komarovsky

We are made to persist. That’s how we find out who we are.

Tobias Wolff

This post is from my weekly newsletter which was delivered into people’s inboxes yesterday morning. If you’d like to sign up, put your email in the sign-up box on the right and tick ‘Planting Seeds’. Don’t forget about the competition to win one of three coaching sessions as part of my Planting Seeds coaching practice.

More about perseverence – hanging on by a thread

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You MAY have noticed that this is a bit of a running theme at the moment ; )

I’m looking forward to reading Zen Heart by Ezra Bayda, which just arrived, but in emergencies it’s OK to cheat and open new books at random and see what you can find.

Here’s what I found – Bayda talking about perseverence:

At one point, when I was very involved at a Zen center in Northern California, I was hit, seemingly out of the blue, with a wall of resistance, and I didn’t want to sit any more, nor did I want to go to the center. But even though I couldn’t stand being there, something in me knew not to bolt. I forced myself to go to just one sitting a week, basically hanging by a thread. Then, after a few months, the resistance began to fade, and I reentered the practice wiht a deeper involvement than before, not only internally but also in the external activities at the center. The point is, sometimes simply persevering will allow us to move through even the worse resistance. Even when our practice efforts seem to produce very little in terms of tangible results, with the little mind seeing “failure” at every step, a part of us knows that we have no choice but to keep starting over. This is the only way we will ever go deeper into our life.

I was speaking to my artist friend on the phone yesterday. We were wondering if sometimes, when resistance really hits, what we should really do is allow ourselves to take a proper break, and to enjoy it, and to return to the work with more hunger.

Personally speaking, I’m not so sure. I think my current wall of resistance would still be there if I took a break for a fortnight (or a year) and it might even get a bit bigger in my absence.

Instead, I’ll open my manuscript this morning (right now) and type a single sentence. Better to hang by a thread than to let go.

PS I found this very beautiful painting, called ‘Hanging By A Thread’, on Gail Bourgeois’ site. I hope she’ll forgive me putting it up here if you promise to go and have a look around at her stunning work. I like this one and lots of others.

PPS Another interview is up at 100 Readers – meet Caroline. There are now 47 blogs with the widget and counting… got yours yet? And we have 14 Blogsplashers – do you want to play? Enough links yet?

Gently does it… recalcitrant donkeys

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More procrastination. More faffing. More guilt.

I CANNOT get myself to open my manuscript and start working on my novel.

I feel like I’m trying to drag a recalcitrant donkey by a rope. He’s dug in his heels (hooves). He wants to STAY WHERE HE IS.

I don’t know why. I’m on my third draft – it should be getting easier. I am busy, but I do have time.

Maybe I do know why. I’m nearing the end of the process, and soon it will be ‘finished’. That means I have to show someone. That means Joe and his aunt Nel (and my best attempt at writing their story) will be exposed to the world. Arhggh.

These novelists, eh – what drama queens ; )

Gently does it. Look, donkey, there’s something nice to eat over here. There’s no hurry. You just have to take a few steps. Just start with one… good donkey. There’s a good donkey.

I have 11 marvellous blogs signed up for my Blogsplash – I’d like 100. Fancy helping out? My a handful of stones widget (well, Gary’s as he invented it) is continuing to take over the world, like Pinky and The Brain – get yours here. Good luck with your own recalcitrant donkey : )

I can’t do it… Yes you can

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(After reading a Very Good Novel indeed)

- What do you think you’re doing putting yourself in the same category as this genuis? You call yourself a WRITER?

- Well, I have written three novels…

- You think you can call them novels? You dare to compare your little books with the genuis of this writing? Why even bother?

- Yes, but I always feel like this when I’m in the middle of…

- I’m really very scared, you know.

- I know. Just open the manuscript document and write a few words. You’ll feel better then, I promise.

- OK, I’ll try it. If you’re sure.

- I’m sure.

PS I’m still downstairs on the big computer (which sounds like an aeroplane) until I can afford to buy a lovely Mac, and the sun streams in through the uncurtained window at this time in the morning. So I’ve just stuck my long skirt to the window with parcel tape. Clever, eh?

Having a tantrum, and another way of looking at discipline

Which resolutions do we throw out of the window?

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From time to time I make a decision to commit to something over the medium term. Recently I made three – to get into a regular writing routine again, to start meditating again, and to take a complete break from reading fiction while I work on my current novel.

The meditation and the writing commitments are holding. They still feel important, and correct, and sustainable. I’ll waver, as I am actually a human being, but I am confident that they’ll stick.

The not-reading-fiction commitment is out of the window. I felt like reading a novel yesterday afternoon, and so I did.

It made me wonder how I can tell the difference between commitments that turn out to be helpful, and commitments that turn out to be rotten. I think partly it’s the spirit with which I originally make the resolutions.

The meditation and writing commitments are a way to honour things that are very important to me. I’ve had a lot of practise at them, and I know what is realistic (1000 terrible words a day) and what isn’t (any more than 20 minutes on the zafu).

The non-fiction commitment came from a fear that I might not do my writing – ‘maybe I can force myself to write if I stop doing this’. The quality of it felt similar to the strong resolutions I get to diet after eating too much ice-cream (which melt away like magic the next day).

I’m getting better at spotting these ‘commitments which arise from fear’, but I still succumb. The funny thing is, I think they’re doomed from the very beginning anyway. I’m off to read some more fiction ; )