Saturday, March 7, 2009

47/65 Priming the pump

Friday off.

I took yesterday off to get my energy back.  It seems to have worked.

Yesterday's meditation was maybe the shortest in the book so far, and even so, I have a quibble with it.  Gate's says that "sauca" or purity involves a leap of faith, because there are too many times that we don't believe that anything will make a difference.  I don't think this is quite right.  What I've seen is that even without faith, the practice itself can act as a way to prime the pump.  To begin with, you don't have to believe in much at all, but the improvements come.  They in turn give you some faith in yourself, and this opens up the well and allows more improvement to flow forth.

If there is some leap of faith that needs to be made, it is simply these two things, I think: 1) some sort of faith in yourself, in your ability to improve over time, even if just a little bit; and 2) a commitment, for whatever reason, to the practice.  I think that that's really all it takes to get started, and if that is a leap of faith, then maybe we don't disagree.

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