What am I looking at in my practice? Always an excellent question. And for me, just considering the question takes me back to center, takes me back to that sense of well-being, that everything’s all right.

What I’m looking at in my practice was pointed at in a recent Open Air show (July 11, 2006). One of the monks was talking about having free time in an airport (due to delayed flights) and spending his time eating french fries and watching a baseball game. Now, in my belief system, monks don’t sit around watching baseball games and eating french fries. When was the last time you had french fries at the Monastery?!? Fortunately, life does not happen according to my belief systems. Life is just life. And life can put together three seemingly incompatible things: (1) monk, (2) watching baseball, and (3) eating french fries.

So I’m seeing how conditioning really struggles – let me rephrase that, I’m seeing how conditioning wants ME to struggle with what it sees as incompatible things in my life. Conditioning doesn’t want me to have an incredibly interesting and busy life that includes: a marriage, a child, a job, and a big commitment to spiritual practice. Conditioning says: “You can’t do that. You can’t have that. You can’t reconcile all of those diverse things. You need to pick one or the other. You know that this is not going to work – you can’t keep all of that going. It’s never going to work. There’s not enough time.” And it’s true – conditioning can’t do that, can’t have that, can’t reconcile that. But fortunately, as with the french fries example above, life can do that. Life can put these seemingly incompatible things together. It’s not a problem. I just do what my heart is drawn to do. Life works out the details. Life can keep things straight. There’s no need for conditioning to “understand,” “figure out,” “plan,” and “get it right.” Just breathe.

A related thing I’m looking at in practice is commitment. And this too was pointed at in a recent Open Air show (August 8, 2006). A caller was commenting that things were going so well in his life that it didn’t seem there was time for practice, or even a need for it. Cheri’s response was that there is time for everything when everything is done in the context of practice. For me, that’s true. It has seemed that, for some time, I’ve been practicing “like my hair’s on fire.” I go to every retreat, workshop, event I can. I make practice a BIG PRIORITY in my life. And, amazingly enough, there’s still time for everything else I want to do in my life. I don’t know how it works, but it does. And still I’m saying YES to more things. Life gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And I can only suspect that practice is what makes it possible – at least that’s where I’m placing my bet.