1/12/24  The nature of life. A dear teacher from my Chaplaincy training is in the ICU and has been for a few weeks. I listened to a talk by him this morning before sitting and in it he talked about dukkha without using the word. He spoke words from his teacher "life is basically impossible" which I have come to know quite well.  Life is impossible but everyday we get up and do the impossible. We live in an incredibly over complicated, over crowded, over everything world and yet each day we get up and we do it again. Just like we do in our meditation practice.  Sometimes, as it did on my most recent retreat, it feels impossible to sit one more day, one more session, one more minute but we do, this is the true fact of sitting. If you dedicate yourself to practice, if you do not DEMAND a particular experience, but take what comes and come to the cushion with an attitude of gratitude - I GET to do this. Even the challenging sits are wonderful, even when in the moment they might not feel that way.  Our practice is not just one sit, our life is just not one moment.  It is all dependent on the last one, and the one before that.  It is all connected and in the continuity at least for me there, is something stabilizing in this fact.  A bedrock of sorts, that my life is built upon this 2600 year old practice. Billions of hours of practice by countless people.  If you just think about how many people are meditating right this moment, there is some strength in that, again at least for me.  Insight Timer the app has an interesting page that shows where and about how many people are meditating at any given time.  Let your practice be your foundation. The teachings becoming clearer with a regular sitting practice.   I wish you ease, thank you for your practice