When we started the yard project last year, it was a big task, but I was starting from almost nothing and had some ideas about what I wanted.  A waterfall and bamboo were a given and the rest would fall around the space.  I saw the need for a focal point and so my 7’ Buddha will come sometime just before summer.  I have worked out what I want for the meditation, sitting, reading bench, and with that complete I will have the far yard finished.  

Now I am looking at the house and in particular the upstairs.  The three rooms have been freshly painted and are calling for me to have the room, like the yard, the way I want it.  It is much hard to take an area that is full of stuff and make it simple than to take an area that is empty and make it your simply vision of how you want to live.  

I have learned about myself that I am a sprinter.  I run best at short spurts of energy and then rest.  I also do best with a plan or strategy.  So I give myself lots of time to sit and think and then get up and move.  Generally, after some good thought and input from trusted thinkers, I don’t have to redo the vision.  

In trying to get my life into a simple meditative living, it is much like the clutter of the bedroom.  My life is full of habits such as getting up to write… then get lost in  timewasters on the computer.    I save reading until the end of the day and then read a paragraph and fall asleep… I know I can’t move to a new mind/body house so the shift of getting a new life pattern that includes day time reading, morning meditation and qigong and afternoon writing will take some great concentration and discipline.  As much as how I want my yard to look, my bedroom to feel, I have to connect to how do I want to live my life.   We always think there is time, but all we have is now.

Many people say they can’t meditate.  What makes it so daunting is the simplicity of it.  You just breath, breath rising, breath falling… fast or slow or deep or shallow… it is simple… just breath…follow the breath… and you are in your Now.   Now my room is a cluttered mess…. Breath rising…breath falling.. on foot in front of the other and with some simple adjustments…before long…. I am in the Now.