a monk.
I am aware that we bring nothing into this world during birth and can take nothing with me when I exit during my death. It is the space in-between that dash chiseled onto the grave marker that complicates things. All the stuff trying to find a place at my feet so it can continue to rise eventually causing a feeling of suffocation.
All the constant nudges and impulses of distractions that tempt me every second of a day begging for me to react to it and allow it into what was once an overcrowded room in my life.
But then I met a friend.
A friend that allowed me into his life to see how he lived within a fundamentally uncomplicated world.
Yes, of course, he was a monk, but I believe it is certainly worth trying to repeat his process as closely as possible.
3:00 AM | He wakes without an alarm.
3:15 AM | He prepares his tea and sits on a mat to drink it.
4:00 AM | He begins his morning meditation.
5:00 AM | Tibetan Rites and meditation.
6:00 AM | Breakfast – a bowl of rice.
7:00 AM | Study and writing – sometimes alone, other times in the company of another person.
8:00 AM | Work begins in the garden. Tending plants and work trimming and meticulously snipping bougainvillea, juniper, and other fine bonsai plants.
10:00 AM | Tea
10:30 AM | Cleaning the floors, inside the sanctuary.
12:00 PM | Lunch – a bowl of rice with a vegetable.
12:30 PM | Sits in meditation and rests.
1:00 PM | Classes of teaching students.
5:00 PM | Duties to retire the day. Meditation, spiritual study.
I was thinking of him on this beautiful stormy Sunday Morning in a state of reverie…
I do wonder when and if the world will ever catch on…
~dk