February 2018
As our Kyol Che (winter intensive practice period) begins, I’ve been thinking about a form of practice that all of us can subscribe to, whether we’ve signed on to do a formal Kyol Che or not. We can do this without adding anything to our schedules at all.
In fact, it would be the opposite of “adding”. But it would be the opposite of “subtracting” too! What could possibly be the opposite of both adding and subtracting? Resting in openness…..
Many of us have heard the teaching phrase: Rest in openness to the totality of present moment awareness. But here’s an experiment, a challenge that any one of us could try. Periodically, in the midst of your working day, maybe when you are in transition from one kind of activity to another, just sit where you are, in the office chair, on the sofa, on the bus, for one to three minutes. Let your hands rest on your lap. Let your eyes rest in front of you. Relax everything in your body. Rest the mind. Don’t even latch onto particular practice techniques. Resist the idea that you have no time. Rather, adopt, for one minute, the notion that you have all the time in the world. Let the operating principle be that of resting in openness.
Try it, and in a very practical and simple way, all of us regardless of circumstances can create this kind of Kyol Che. Or this kind of life, for that matter.
Yours in the total timelessness of the dharma’s light,
Jeong Ji