Ango Challenge!

I don't always pick up Tricycle magazine because it's a bit pricey, but when I was in Barnes and Noble the other day, I felt compelled to. More succinctly, I felt compelled by the headline: The Big Sit: Tricycle's 90-Day Meditation Challenge.

Sitting meditation is just not my thing. Yeah, I have a lazy streak, but I don't like just sitting around doing nothing. Walking meditation-- that's more like it. But I've always kind of questioned the need to meditate at all. Why not just incorporate mindfulness and the precepts into one's everyday life? Afterall, should at least part of the point of following any religion be that it helps you improve your day to day life? I guess I have always felt that as long as that's true, a meditation practice is superfluous.

But you know me, and I am sometimes drawn to things I don't think I can do. Being confronted with a 90 Day Meditation Challenge sounded like one of those things for sure, haha.

From today (March 2nd) until May 30th, here's what I'll be doing:

-sitting meditation 20 minutes daily (I may start with only 10 minutes for the first few days to ease myself into it)
-listening to one dharma talk each week (Week One's is here)
-studying Dogen's Genjokoan
-committing to the 16 bodhisattva precepts*
-forcing myself to post on the Tricycle community boards, as taking part in a community is supposed to be part of this. yeah.

So I think this is what I'm going to be blogging about. If I get through the 90 days, this might just be a modern miracle, haha.

And with that, I'm going to play some MahJong!




*The 16 Precepts:

The first 3 are also known as the "3 Refuges" or sometimes the 3 Jewels. These verses describe them simply:

I take refuge in the Buddha,
the one who shows me the way in this life.

I take refuge in the Dharma,
the way of understanding and love.

I take refuge in the Sangha,
the community that lives in harmony and awareness. (p 161, Heart of the Buddha's Teaching)

The 3 Pure Precepts:

-Ceasing from evil
-Doing good
-Doing good for others

and the Ten Grave Precepts:

-Non-killing/harming
-Non-stealing
-Not misusing sex
-Not telling lies
-Not using intoxicants/deluding the mind (no more raspberry coladas :( hah)
-Not talking about other's errors and faults
-Not elevating oneself and blaming others
-Not being stingy
-Not being angry (this will be the hardest one)
-Not speaking ill of the 3 Treasures/Refuges/Jewels

I'm sure I'll be discussing these within the next 90 days. . .