This Sunday we’ll be doing a short ceremony together on zoom after the sit, to 
share our practice vows for the coming year. Practice vows help us keep going deeper into our practice. To affirm publicly — to the sangha, to the teacher — your intention for practice, the deepest commitment that you hold for your life. This varies for each person. Some take on a measured vow, some take on a more challenging vow. The vow, in whatever form it takes, helps to keep the practice up. To come back to quiet mind daily and come back again and again. This is how we transform old habits of mind that may not be so helpful into wholesome habits over time — into continuing presence.
If we don’t bring forward a clear practice intention we can continue to reinforce the old habits and follow mindlessly all the distractions and confusions, desires, aversions and all that these habits of mind bring into the world, thus narrowing our life, limiting our freedom and joy. What we practice we refine, we increase.
Without practice vows, you may show up for a Sunday sit just occasionally for a whole lifetime, just when you feel like it. Maybe doing some zazen at home, maybe not. This “thread practice” keeps dharma practice going, but just. It’s like eating a bowl of very thin soup every day. Pretty soon, you get weak and run out of energy. So it goes with Zen practice. You can have a “make-do practice.” But it won’t really yield the freedom and transformation that regular practice, grounded in vow, does.
Especially when you are living a work-a-day life, a practice vow can keep you firmly on the path of refuge in mindfulness, wholeheartedness and ethical nutrition. Without a practice vow, there are so many distractions that the balance can easily tip over into taking refuge in the distractions, thus reinforcing and strengthening desires. There is no end to desires through desire.
In preparation for this ceremony on the Sunday after winter solstice, consider what practice vows you would like to take on for the coming year. Write them down and bring to share at that service. Remember — All things work together. So if you want to live with a Mind of Awakening , you must live in an Awakening Way.
share our practice vows for the coming year. Practice vows help us keep going deeper into our practice. To affirm publicly — to the sangha, to the teacher — your intention for practice, the deepest commitment that you hold for your life. This varies for each person. Some take on a measured vow, some take on a more challenging vow. The vow, in whatever form it takes, helps to keep the practice up. To come back to quiet mind daily and come back again and again. This is how we transform old habits of mind that may not be so helpful into wholesome habits over time — into continuing presence.If we don’t bring forward a clear practice intention we can continue to reinforce the old habits and follow mindlessly all the distractions and confusions, desires, aversions and all that these habits of mind bring into the world, thus narrowing our life, limiting our freedom and joy. What we practice we refine, we increase.
Without practice vows, you may show up for a Sunday sit just occasionally for a whole lifetime, just when you feel like it. Maybe doing some zazen at home, maybe not. This “thread practice” keeps dharma practice going, but just. It’s like eating a bowl of very thin soup every day. Pretty soon, you get weak and run out of energy. So it goes with Zen practice. You can have a “make-do practice.” But it won’t really yield the freedom and transformation that regular practice, grounded in vow, does.
Especially when you are living a work-a-day life, a practice vow can keep you firmly on the path of refuge in mindfulness, wholeheartedness and ethical nutrition. Without a practice vow, there are so many distractions that the balance can easily tip over into taking refuge in the distractions, thus reinforcing and strengthening desires. There is no end to desires through desire.
In preparation for this ceremony on the Sunday after winter solstice, consider what practice vows you would like to take on for the coming year. Write them down and bring to share at that service. Remember — All things work together. So if you want to live with a Mind of Awakening , you must live in an Awakening Way.
❤️ Mushin