How is your practice?

Tom Carr on long retreats: Madeline, thats what everybody thinks. The truth is that usually the hardest days of a retreat are the first two or three days while you are slowing down. After those first few days it gets much easier, and often gets wonderful beyond belief. Generally if you can do a two day retreat you can do a month long retreat. The only thing harder about doing a month than doing a day, is that on the first day of that month long retreat you can drive youself crazy thinking "Oh no, what have I gotten myself into? How can I possibly sit here for a month! ", but doing it one day at a time the days tend to get easier and better.

More from Tom Carr: I did a 3 day weekend retreat up in the mountains (Southern Dharma retreat center in North Carolina) last weekend. Marcia Rose, from IMS was the teacher. I like her. This weekend she is here in Atlanta and I am doing another weekend retreat with her. This one is a retreat where you come home to sleep, so here I am, home from the retreat for the evening, logged into the Well. So hows my practice? Wonderful. Today it felt right. (Sept 9, 95)

Tom Carr: Fri Sep 15 '95 (20:45) 16 lines Butt on cushion, hands on knees, breath in out, GOOD ! My practice is good. To tell the truth it feels better than sex. Lots of pleasure in my body, but very relaxed. Smiling a lot. The trick is to get to the cushion in the first place. I am so easily carried away by the energy of constantly seeking something, that even though I know better, I get caught up in the seeking and don't just STOP and BE, which is where my real satisfaction is. For instance tonight I almost went to hear some music, almost went to a book store, almost went out to eat with friends. Fortunately I avoided all these activities and came home and sat still instead and it was great. It helped me to tell my self "Just sit for a minute". Then I don't feel the pressure of actually committing a big chunk of time, but once I sit down it changes me and frequently I sit for a good while.

And some more quotes from our prodigious quoted Tom Carr: Tue Jun 27 '95 (21:57) 7 lines This weekend I did part of a weekend retreat here in Atlanta. I sat about 4 hours Saturday afternoon and 4 hours Sunday afternoon. Sit, gong, walk, gong, sit, gong, hour after hour, I felt wonderful. Today I had to stand in a check out line an extra 5 minutes because of some computer foul up. I felt angry, irritated, horrible. Sat Jul 8 '95 (12:02) 3 lines I did a month long retreat years ago at Karma Choling. I was very nervous for weeks before I went, but once I got there and sat down, everything was great. Jul 8 '95 (22:45) 3 lines I think she is in Halifax now. I have been reading her book "Start Where You Are" and think its great. I would also like to do a retreat with her. Mon Aug 28 '95 (20:11) 14 lines > Truth is, I don't know if I would be capable of doing such a > long retreat Madeline, thats what everybody thinks. The truth is that usually the hardest days of a retreat are the first two or three days while you are slowing down. After those first few days it gets much easier, and often gets wonderful beyond belief. Generally if you can do a two day retreat you can do a month long retreat. The only thing harder about doing a month than doing a day, is that on the first day of that month long retreat you can drive youself crazy thinking "Oh no, what have I gotten myself into? How can I possibly sit here for a month! ", but doing it one day at a time the days tend to get easier and better. Wed Aug 30 '95 (21:43) 18 lines I have gotten pretty tense the last few days for several reasons: I have been spending too much time at my computer. I have been involved in a zoning battle. I have not been getting any exercise because of a foot problem. I have not been sitting. Tonight I sat. I sat down and sat still and looked at the wall. For a long time I mostly thought about the rezoning, how money buys politicians, the real estate developers have lots of money, we don't have much of a chance to save the neighborhood, and so on. I stayed tense. Then I remembered. Something about how holding on hurts and letting go feels good. I relaxed a little. It felt good. I relaxed some more. Everything was lighter. So what am I doing here writing about it? Habit. Hopefully now I'll post this and go back to sitting. Sat Sep 9 '95 (19:23) 15 lines I did a 3 day weekend retreat up in the mountains (Southern Dharma retreat center in North Carolina) last weekend. Marcia Rose, from IMS was the teacher. I like her. This weekend she is here in Atlanta and I am doing another weekend retreat with her. This one is a retreat where you come home to sleep, so here I am, home from the retreat for the evening, logged into the Well. So hows my practice? Wonderful. Today it felt right. There was crystal clear certainty. There have been lots of times in my life that I wondered if I was wasting my time with meditation. Times I wondered if I was just fooling myself. Today it felt good. I felt certain that it was the best thing for me to be doing. I felt grateful and amazed. For several hours in the morning though, I couldn't stop thinking about a computer project I am working on. Fri Sep 15 '95 (20:45) 16 lines Butt on cushion, hands on knees, breath in out, GOOD ! My practice is good. To tell the truth it feels better than sex. Lots of pleasure in my body, but very relaxed. Smiling a lot. The trick is to get to the cushion in the first place. I am so easily carried away by the energy of constantly seeking something, that even though I know better, I get caught up in the seeking and don't just STOP and BE, which is where my real something, that even though I know better, I get caught up in the seeking and don't just STOP and BE, which is where my real satisfaction is. For instance tonight I almost went to hear some music, almost went to a book store, almost went out to eat with friends. Fortunately I avoided all these activities and came home and sat still instead and it was great. It helped me to tell my self "Just sit for a minute". Then I don't feel the pressure of actually committing a big chunk of time, but once I sit down it changes me and frequently I sit for a good while. Fri Oct 6 '95 (21:14) 6 lines My practice is pretty good. I am sitting every day. I am reading a little on Buddhism every day. I am behaving in a relatively decent way as I interact with other people. I am doing all right in bringing my attention back into the present moment throughout the day. All in all I feel good about my practice now. Wed Nov 8 '95 (21:11) 12 lines I was sitting, trying to meditate, but all these thoughts about computers, money, commitment to this project, commitment to that project, "should I tell him I will do it or not?", and so on and so on, my mind is just running like crazy and I am thinking how can I practice with all this mental chatter going on and then ..... Bang! the freeing thought, "Relating to all this mental chatter _is_ the practice !" So I relate to the thoughts. Simple. Why does it take me so long to remember this stuff? Light flows through my body and I laugh and I come to write this and put it on the Well. Mon Nov 13 '95 (07:21) 15 lines I guess most people reading this will know the story about Milarepa building the towers. Well I don't have any towers to build, but I got some really big computer programs that need to be built in the next 6 weeks, and that's my practice. Sometimes I don't deal well with deadlines, pressure, and so on. Sometimes I dread this stuff. I think relating to that dread may be my spiritual practice. Other times computers are the ultimate toy and I am a child at play building things with the adult version of electronic tinker toys and I have great fun. Maybe getting into that world of great fun will be my practice. Hopefully in the midst of all this programing work I will make time for formal sitting practice, and sitting with my friend dying from brain cancer. Tue Nov 28 '95 (21:38) 10 lines My practice is good. I quit a job I had been at for 10 years, so I could start my own business. I felt some anxiety, and some sadness about leaving those people I had worked with so long. This is a big deal for me though, a new beginning, and I hope part of what I do is integrate my spiritual life and my work life better. I am sitting every day. I am having interesting work life better. I am sitting every day. I am having interesting dreams. Sometimes I am very happy. Sometimes I am lonely and sad. Mon Feb 5 '96 (07:26) 23 lines Yesterday (Sunday), I practiced throughout the day. My practice is sort of a Vipassana mindfulness technique, but when thoughts come, especially emotionally charged thoughts, I sometimes use some NLP techniques to reframe them. I practiced throughout the day, but in short periods. I would sit, and then, after about 10 minutes, if a thought about doing a particular thing came into my mind, I would sit and watch the thought for a while, consider if this was really a good productive use of my particular thing came into my mind, I would sit and watch the thought for a while, consider if this was really a good productive use of my time, and if I decided it was, I would get up and do the thing I was thinking about, but try to do it as mindfully as possible, like in walking meditation, and then return to sitting. The things I ended up doing were laundry, cleaning the house, paying some bills, and making some phone calls to old friends. By the end of the day I felt wonderful. This is a technique that I plan to use more often when I am home and free on a weekend day. Other than yesterday, my practice has not been all that great. I am going into an office job earlier than I used to, and have not gotten in the habit of earlier rising yet, so I am not sitting in the mornings. I do sit in the evenings and it is good. This week I am working at home, and will make time to sit in the mornings, and maybe some other times during the day. Tue Feb 6 '96 (20:41) 11 lines I am in a genuinely awful mood due to the combined effect of a romantic rejection and the flu. Having just turned 46 and wondering what in the world I am doing with my life adds to it. I call my friends on the telephone and the first thing I say is "I want tell you about how messed up my life is", and that usually gets us laughing and cheers me up for a minute and then I am back in this dark uncomfortable space. and that usually gets us laughing and cheers me up for a minute and then I am back in this dark uncomfortable space. That's how my practice is. Wed Feb 7 '96 (14:39) 52 lines Thanks for your support everyone. I am out of my dark mood now, and think I may stay out of it. Last night after posting the above message #387, I took action. The first really brilliant thing I did was take some strong cold medicine, which can have an amazing effect on some of the moodyness of a cold or flu. Next I sat for about a half hour. That got me out of of the moodyness of a cold or flu. Next I sat for about a half hour. That got me out of the dark place, or that plus the medicine. Then since I had cleared up a bit, I kind of forgot about my gloom and picked a book from the stack by my chair and started reading. I read "Howl" by Alan Ginsberg and decided he was as miserable as I have ever been when he was writing parts of that and it is still beautiful. What a great line "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness ... ". Finally I read over a bunch of positive affirmations from an old favorite book. I went to sleep feeling pretty good, and woke up feeling OK. Now this afternoon I feel happy. Being in these unpleasant mind states is really a drag, but one positive thing is that the pain motivates me to try real hard to understand the pain and what causes it and how to get out of it. That's what has been happening the last few days. After all the pain and all the intense examination of the pain and its cause and the way to end it, it all does come down to After all the pain and all the intense examination of the pain and its cause and the way to end it, it all does come down to the four noble truths, but still I seem to have to go through this stuff from time to time, to see the truth from a slightly different angle that has me confused, or to remember something I knew but had temporarily lost sight of. I seem to get out of this stuff faster and faster as the years go by. Its like I still get lost in a dark maze, but I have found my way out of there so many times that it gets easier and easier. This time, I got out when I realized something very simple: 1 Certain thoughts and mind pictures hurt. They stimulate painful emotions. 2 If I stop thinking those thoughts as soon as I notice them I can stop hurting. 3 I have some power to stop thinking those painful thoughts. 4 My techniques this time to stop the painful thoughts thoughts. 4 My techniques this time to stop the painful thoughts were to notice them, to be aware that they hurt, to tell myself I have some power to stop thinking them, to use techniques of positive statements, positive mind pictures and reframing (from NLP) to speed the dissolution of the painful thoughts. There was a part of my belief structure that interfered with this process, the part that said "Those aren't thoughts, those are reality, you can't change reality". I debated this idea and won, but I am not going to go into that debate now since this post is already pretty long. Mon Feb 12 '96 (19:06) 21 lines -> Please say a little more about "NLP techniques." That sounds -> interesting. Many books have been written about NLP of course, but I'll briefly tell you some things I do that you might enjoy trying. When an unpleasant thought comes to mind, there is trying. When an unpleasant thought comes to mind, there is usually a picture associated with it. Make the picture smaller and dimmer and put in behind you. You can do this. For every unpleasant thought you can probably find some happy thought that kind of counter balances the unpleasant thought. This happy thought probably has a picture associated with it. Make that picture bigger and brighter. Make all the colors in it brighter and more vivid. Try sitting in the middle of that picture. Try having it real big right in front of you. Do which ever feels best. I have found this helpful when I am feeling overwhelmed by especially painful emotionally charged thoughts. These so called new cutting edge NLP techniques are amazingly similar to some of the Tibetan visualizations.

more from Tom Carr: Sun Apr 28 '96 (19:58) This weekend, a Tibetan Lama, Kangyur Rimpoche, came to Atlanta and lead an Avalokiteshvara Empowerment. As soon as I sat down in the shrine room with Kangyar Rimpoche, I started getting real high. I noticed feelings in my body that were in some way connected with some of my neurotic patterns. It seemed so easy and obvious just to feel into those areas, release the tension, and dissolve into light. It is difficult, and maybe not a good idea, to try to describe peak experiences. I will just briefly say that the weekend was wonderful. By the end of today it felt like I could just let go and my body would turn into butterflies of white light and fly away in all directions. It was good. I have not spent much time with the complex Tibetan ceremonies. They just seemed too complicated. I have always been real attracted to the color and art of the Tibetan tradition, but preferred the simpler practices of sitting quietly, following my breath, and so on. After this weekend, I think I am going to start with the visualizations, mantras, just dive into all that complexity and see what happens. By the way, after the weekend of intense beauty, joy, light, freedom, enlightenment, and all that stuff, I drove home and noticed that my old neurotic tendencies are still here.

Tom Carr: Last weekend I did a retreat with a Tibetan monk that included instruction in Guru Yoga and the empowerment that goes with it. Briefly, "Guru Yoga" is a meditation or ceremony that involves: Going for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Generation of Boddhicita (the motivation to become enlightened for the good of all sentient beings). A complex visualization that involves Maitreya and the Guru and other things. Various other visualizations inside the body. Mantras. Other stuff. I am not going to describe the whole thing here. I have been doing this at home and it is wonderful. I have been practicing a bunch. I feel very grateful and happy. Topic 146 [wonderland]: How's Your Practice? #491 of 976: Tom Carr (tomcarr) Thu Jul 4 '96 (21:23) 7 lines For about a year now, my focus in practice has been shifting from Vipassana to Tibetan forms. This feels just right. I am very attracted to the colors of the Tibetan forms. This shift has been possible partially because my study of NLP helped me understand what the visualizations are doing in a way that I am more comfortable with, that seemed more scientific and less mythical. Thu Aug 22 '96 (07:34) 8 lines Yes, I have noticed that people with lots of physical pain worry about this, but all you have to do is ask. Noboby ever points a finger at you or calls you chicken or anything. I often sit in the back of the room at Vipassana retreats and lean against a wall, or sit in a chair or do whatever is comfortable. I have tried just becoming aware of my pain, and that is probably somewhat useful in that it has kept me from panicing in real painful situations, but that is about it. I don't see relating to physical pain as a particularly useful practice for me. Tue Oct 1 '96 (21:24) 17 lines I started reading Jack Kornfield's "A Path with Heart" a few weeks ago. The first chapter goes into the "loving kindness meditation" as taught in the Vipassana tradition. I have done lots of Vipassana retreats where they almost always teach this meditation, so I had done it a little at the retreats, but never really got into it. I gave it another try after reading Kornfield's description though, and now I am very much into it. It is having a major impact on me. I always regarded it as a light weight thing, where as I was now I am very much into it. It is having a major impact on me. I always regarded it as a light weight thing, where as I was into the "heavy" stuff, emptiness, no self and such. Obviously I am kind of an immature, bullshit Buddhist, but growing. I feel great doing this. Images of people I was angry with 20 or 30 years ago, who I had completely forgotten, pop into my mind and I use them for the focus of the loving kindness on enemies, then they fade and another pops into mind. This is what I need to be doing. I am leaving in the morning to do a retreat. Will check back here next week. Love, Tom Mon Oct 7 '96 (21:47) 16 lines I'm back from my retreat. It was good. The leader was Thubten Chodron, an American woman who is a Tibetan Buddhist Nun. I liked her and would recommend her as a teacher. She has a center in Seattle, and has written some books, "Open Heart, Clear Mind" and others. She made some recommendations as to how we could maintain the state of mind we developed at the retreat. The recommendation that pressed the most buttons was when she said: "If you are really the state of mind we developed at the retreat. The recommendation that pressed the most buttons was when she said: "If you are really serious about spiritual practice, as soon as you go home, get rid of your TV". I have been home 24 hours and my TV is still here. Last night I watched the Clinton Dole debate, but turned the TV off as soon as the debate ended. I am thinking about TV, movies, and spiritual practice. I really want to follow the elections, but maybe after they are over I will put the TV out in the garage for a month. Tue Oct 8 '96 (06:15) 7 lines I agree with you putterer. Also it seems to me that watching some news programs actually does increase understanding of how our society works. I am thinking of limiting myself to a maximum of 1 hour of TV news a day and 2 movies a month. If I can't do that, I will have to look at myself like aan alcoholic who has to get all the alcohol out of the house, and I will put the TV in the garage. I could still move it back to the house in an emergency. Tue Oct 8 '96 (15:03) 17 lines I watch the News Hour on PBS every weekday night. I know that you can read faster than you can talk so you can get more information from reading than from listening/watching TV. However in the live interviews and debates there are the facial expressions and voice tones that give extra information that I think make it worth while. I think it was what they call "Auspicious Coincidence" that just when I got back from the retreat, after driving for four hours and I think it was what they call "Auspicious Coincidence" that just when I got back from the retreat, after driving for four hours and thinking about this question, I come home and it is time for the Clinton/Dole debate. I watched it and found it fascinating. I think it was a worth while use of my time. I agree with everything that has said about TV being a time sink though. I have not used it that much to kill time and veg out. I mostly watch news, as I said. For me the bigger time sink is going to the movies. I love going into a dark theater, eating popcorn, the whole trip, but that is a big time sink for me, and I plan to cut back, but not quit.

Tom Carr: Sun Nov 17 '96 (20:27) 19 lines I haven't been sitting much lately because I am involved in a big romance. Sitting is good but this is better. Well that's only partially true and partially a joke. Truth is that this is my first serious relationship in almost 2 years and it really feels good and I have pretty much let everything go except work and being with her. I know this intense euphoric state is just temporary and eventually life will get back to normal. I'll start sitting, cleaning the house, reading books and so on, but right now all temporary and eventually life will get back to normal. I'll start sitting, cleaning the house, reading books and so on, but right now all I want to do is lie around with her and I intend to enjoy it. I may eventually start another topic on this, but I'll just mention briefly here that I don't think this relationship could be nearly as good as it is without the Buddhist practice I have done, and the changes it made in my world view. A Lama I study with repeated something over and over until it finally sunk in. He said "True happiness comes from cherishing others more than ourselves". Its true. Jesus said it too: "It's better to give than receive". As I become more concerned with my partners happiness and well being, and less concerned with my own, I get happier. Tue Nov 26 '96 (06:10) 14 lines People always seem to feel nervous when going into an unknown meditation situation. That nervousness is always unfounded from what I have seen. Its like we imagine there is going to be someone like an angry parent there who will shame us, say something like "This is holy ground, how dare you fidgit you evil child", and we will be traped there, sitting in agony as our nose itch drives us to madness and our legs scream in pain. It never happens that way. Spiritual practice is mostly pleasure and fun. The physical discomfort is never that big a deal. A retreat may It never happens that way. Spiritual practice is mostly pleasure and fun. The physical discomfort is never that big a deal. A retreat may involve the discomfort of a camping trip. There may be strong psychological discomfort, but that seems to be something we have todeal with anyway, and meditation allows a safe space to deal with it. . Feb 2 97: I mentioned this months ago. I was at the end of a meditation retreat. There was a discussion about how to maintain our spiritual life when we left the retreat. The leader said "If you are really serious about this stuff, go back and get rid of your TV's". I have been thinking about this for months. I didn't want to get rid of the TV before the elections because I wanted to watch all the politics, then I didn't want to get rid of the TV before Christmas because I wanted to watch Christmas on TV. Then I just didn't want to get rid of the TV. Tonight I got rid of it. It feels good.

Tue Feb 11 '97 (07:05) 19 lines It's been about 10 days now since I got rid of my TV. I feel good about it. I think I was averaging an hour and a half a day watching news and interviews on PBS. That saved time is being spent roughly as 30 minutes extra sitting practice, 30 minutes extra reading (in which I take in more info than I ever did from TV news), and 30 minutes extra writing, doing odd jobs around the house etc. Getting rid of the TV did more than just save that 1 1/2 hours though. It caused me to take a new look at what I was doing with Getting rid of the TV did more than just save that 1 1/2 hours though. It caused me to take a new look at what I was doing with my time. For example, I generally enjoy reading good fiction more than I enjoy going to the movies, so how come I was spending more time at the movies ? Could it be that I was manipulated by advertising ? Anyway, I think I can drop movies for a few months and see if I think I am really missing anything. There are several other examples, but the point is that I am taking a look at my life and what I am doing with it. So much of my activity is unexamined habitual patterns. I am trying to examine those patterns. Getting rid of the TV was a good catalyst to start that examination. Practice? #810 of 976: Tom Carr (tomcarr) Thu Apr 17 '97 (07:19) 23 lines I quit drinking coffee recently because of a stomach problem. It was hard to quit. Coffee is pretty addictive when you drink as much as I did. I had been meaning to quit for years, but kept putting it off. I knew it was bad for me but I liked it and it seemed like so much trouble to kick the addiction, and I kept telling myself "I'll quit someday". It was the constant painful burning in my stomach that finally quit someday". It was the constant painful burning in my stomach that finally motivated me to quit. Now that I have quit I feel better, both calmer and more energetic at the same time. This experience has me thinking about how I put off doing the things that I know are "right" but difficult until I have some painful disaster to motivate me. When I say "right", I don't mean morally correct, I mean things that will make me happier. Things that will make my life and others lives better. Lots of people have big spiritual openings on their death beds. There isn't much time left. I guess you realize that if you are ever going to open up, let go, surrender, call it what you will, you better do it now. There is something scary about opening up / surrender / letting go / enlightenment I think it is the right thing to do and plan to do it some day. Sun Jul 13 '97 (20:44) 15 lines About a week ago, I was spending too much time on the Well and too little time practicing. I was about to sit and then something came to mind and I said to myself "I'll just turn on the computer for a few minutes, do this one thing and then sit". A whole inner argument followed, one part of me saying I should sit, another saying to turn on the computer. I ended up turning on the computer. I heard an electrical crackle sound and then smoke started coming out of the monitor. I don't know what happened. I turned it off quick. No more monitor. No way to use the computer. I went to sit. I have been practicing lots more this last week without the computer. Very nice week. Today a friend gave me a monitor she wasn't using. I plugged it in. Here I am again. Fri Jul 25 '97 (06:22) 5 lines I am leaving in a few hours for a three day Vipassana retreat. Looking forward to it. Looking forward to getting out of Atlanta and going up to the mountains. I do lots of these short retreats, but have not done anything over 3 days in years. Think it's time for me to do 10 days somewhere, or maybe a month. Fri Aug 15 '97 (16:06) 12 lines I guess JudyB is now sitting a sesshin at Green Gulch. When she is away no one posts in Wonderland. Interesting what an effect she has here. Her posts are just a small percent of the total, but she must provide some kind of momentum that keeps things rolling. As for how my practice is .... I have a stomach problem that I have finally realized is created by stress at work. Thats an odd thing for someone like me who meditates every day. Maybe not so odd. Maybe my practice is stale. Maybe I have lost beginners mind. someone like me who meditates every day. Maybe not so odd. Maybe my practice is stale. Maybe I have lost beginners mind. I am doing stress reduction exercises that seem very much like meditation, and they seem to be helping my stomach. I am thinking a lot about why they are working and my regular meditation practice was not working.

Tom Carr (the most recent chapter): ed Aug 20 '97 (06:38) 22 lines Last friday I wrote that I was doing stress reduction exercises that were helping a stomach problem, where as meditation had not worked. I was wondering why this is. I am not sure, but these are some thoughts. I started doing the stress reduction exercises right when I started focusing on the whole problem of stress at work. I started paying close attention to my stress level. Started telling myself whenever I felt stressed that the most important thing in my life was to be stress free, that the job my stress level. Started telling myself whenever I felt stressed that the most important thing in my life was to be stress free, that the job was relatively unimportant in comparison. Started doing more body awareness meditation. Started talking about the problem more. Started telling myself and believing that I could do something about the problem. All these things worked together to relieve stress. There was nothing wrong with the meditation I was doing, it just wasn't enough to solve the problem. I think most of us who have been practicing for any length of time have noticed that there is sometimes a tendency to believe meditation will solve all mental problems, but in fact it does not. For me this is a lesson that I have to learn over and over again. Meditation is wonderful, but lots of things are not easily effected by meditation and can be approached more easily with other techniques.

I have posted the above words of Tom Carr with his kind permission as an example of a spiritual practice over time that is very inspirational. I wish I could give up tv and spend less time online. That is why I use Tom's practice as a good example for what I need to do in my own life. And I am looking forward to (hopefully) seeing Tom drop in here for an occasional comment or two. It may be outside his scope and I would understand. But I am grateful for him allowing us to see his practice over time as an example of where one's practice can lead.

from J. Weltman (jaxers@well.com): I had this really brilliant thing all figured out to say, and then my paste function wigged out - so, Mike : find D.T. Suzuki's "Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism" - first pub. 1907. You may find it in 1) a good University library or 2) good used bookstores. It's very helpful for all this subject - object stuff. Very clear. Nobody has yet addressed how the body figures in daily practice. I find that my work injuries can sometimes make my zazen a hell to be practiced with! I have a shoulder injury and a bad back. Whne these flare up - yipes! Yet I am committed to sitting consistently. How do you all deal with physical discomfort and/or pain in practice, sitting and sesshin?