I may be overcommitted for the next few months. I certainly feel a
bit of pressure from what I'm trying to do:
- Training classes to volunteer with Project READ. (5 nights
in May)
- Have a core, complicated piece of software up and running
for work, that I haven't started yet. (May 22)
- Finish my rakusu. (end of May-ish)
- Help get a guy at the dojo ready for his test. (beginning
of June)
- Retreat at Tassajara. (June 18-21)
- Jukai and one-day retreat. (June 27-28)
- Intensive at San Francisco Zen Center. (July 10-31)
- Train for aikido black belt. (ongoing until whenever)
All of that leaves little to no time to go out to Massachusetts,
which I'd like to do before too long, and to Minnesota, which I'd
been looking at for July. As I look at the calendar, I'm
considering bailing on the SFZC intensive so I can have a little
travel time, even though I need the retreat time as well. Oh
well--dust will start to settle and things will clear up. I know I
can't take any time before the last week of May, anyway, so that's
a start.
I had an actual rough day yesterday. My technology failed me, and
I sat zazen for 70-80 minutes instead of 40, which is fine, but
with the extra time I got bowled over by some really unpleasant
stuff. (This is normal, only happens occasionally for most of us,
and is an important part of why we sit. But it does suck.) Then
work sort of piled onto it a bit, and though that got resolved in
mid-afternoon, I never quite shook off the morning experience.
Running! I think running in the morning works better, because then
I'm moving around all day and not pushing my muscles and then
lying down for eight hours. The second time out continued to be
awesome.