zenjones

One of my favorite aids-de-practice is a collaboration with my Zen Pal.

Every morning we e-mail each other with our “3 MITs*”. *Most Important Things. Two of them are work or personal life related (“Make appointment with dentist” “Finish website design”) but the third is always practice-related (“Be aware of anxiety” “Non-manifestation of anger day” “As often as possible, as long as possible”). I then copy and paste my practice MIT into my online calendar, and set it to send me a reminder hourly.

It is very effective at keeping practice upper-most in my mind. I particularly like it when I’m in a business meeting and I check my PDA and it has a message like, “Be aware of the wind on your cheek.” It’s great help to be pulled out of a negotiation, to get some distance. Or sometimes it happens when I’m riding my bike to the store and I’m busily planning away, and I get a message to “Be aware without ceasing” and realize that I am in the middle of life, instead of plannning for life to begin.

Only occasionally does one of the sayings apply to where I am right then. When my husband is home, I like to have “The first rule of relationships: refrain from blaming.” It’s nice to notice how often I blame him when I’m upset, and how it is just a believed thought, and not true at all. I think he likes it, too. This morning I said, “It feels like you are bullying me.” He started to defend his last statement and I said, “No, I don’t mean that you are bullying me. Just that it feels that way.” He smiled and went about his business, not changing, giving me the opportunity to practice with my believed thought.