The gate

And so I start here.
Nothing to keep me from going on through except ...
Except my own feeling of "can I do this?"

This is how it gets for me when I don't sit zazen, when I don't prepare food, when I don't sweep, when I lose my focus. I've been sick (cough, cough, gag) all week. So, books, tea, bedrest, and sleep have been the agenda. I also had the opportunity to really look at some of the stuff I struggle with. Sometimes getting the 'flu is like being given a retreat cottage in a deep wood.

I am grateful every changing "here-and-now" that I have the possibility in THIS life to be ordained, to truly give my life to this practice. I mean, you don't have to be ordained to do this, but, for me, donning robes was like coming home.