The small ways we practice

 I like to get up before the house wakes up. I like to drink coffee and think. 

I’m aware of the great traditions that teach students to sit correctly, to become aware of their breathing, to empty their minds. But I like black coffee. Instead of emptying my mind, I try to pay attention to what comes up, to see if anything of interest is caught in the current, floating down the stream.

I like these lines from Gunilla Norris:

 

Each of us must construct the small ways

that we scaffold our silence.

In the end we must simply practice.

 

• Source: Gunilla Norris, Inviting Silence: Universal Principles of Meditation; Goldens Bridge, N.Y.: BlueBridge, 2004, p. 46.