yesterday’s run

Since reading the sentence But rest and sleep are not the same thing at all in a post by Summer Brennan I have been wondering what rest is, then, and how I can possibly do it. I tend to think of myself as operating in two modes: on and off, and off happens at night when I am asleep, and otherwise I am on, on, on—no rest. During sesshin, the schedule includes an hour or so in the afternoon for rest practice, and the way I practice rest then is usually to sleep, because the schedule also has us waking up just before 4am or just after, depending on the season. But another way I practice rest at that time is to fill a cup with coffee and walk up the hill behind the zendo to sit on a bench and look at the grass, trees, and mountains and listen to whatever is chirping or twittering at that time of year. And so I suppose I do have an idea of what rest might be without sleeping.

Yesterday I spent some time teasing out the distinctions between not only rest and sleep but also self-protection and self-care. Some of the ways I protect myself are maybe not so healthy, and I’m not sure I know what it means to take care of myself. My morning went very wrong yesterday, and I missed going on the run I had planned, and then for much of the rest of the day I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t figure out what I ought to be doing. Maybe I had needed the run I had missed, maybe running is a way I take care of myself, not in the sense of maintaining my cardiovascular health or whatever, but in the sense that my spirit requires it.

And maybe I need writing in the same way. It is not restful, really, but I am lost without it. And it occurs to me just now as I am writing these words not on paper or in a word processor but directly into the platform I use to share my words with other people, and as I feel a little bit ashamed that I am planning to share these words, that writing is a way of taking care of myself that is in conflict with my usual ways of protecting myself—my guardedness, circumspection of other people. And perfectionism! Which ordinarily would keep me from sharing this first-draft, off-the-top-of-my-head writing.

Anyway, I have no conclusions to draw right now. I am just noticing—and, because my spirit apparently requires it, I am making a record of my noticing. And in a few hours I will go on yesterday’s missed run.

Take care!! xox