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So I've missed a few days of practice. I don't think that I am alone in feeling a bit strange when I miss practice. Its probably like missing any workout. I feel more irritable, tight, slow.
I have had a chance to meditate-- just a few minutes a day. And I've been concentrating on my breathing while walking to and from work. These things combined with streatching, ki exercises, and katas help alieveate the symptoms of missing practice. They help me recenter and relax.
During these days off I have had some time to think about my Randori experience and how it relates to the world and my Self-Rebellion.
Chaos is nothing more
Than the reflection of our own confusion
And evidence of our inability to comprehend
The complexity and scale
Of the universe in its entirety.
Is it possible that the desire to find an order or pattern in chaos is what keeps us from rising above it, or flowing with it? This desire to find pattern is like trying to predict the future-- a distraction from the present.
The desire divides our minds--- we rethink the past-- we try to discover how it will inform the future-- the present passes. One must enter the present competely. Perhaps then multiple enemies become absorbed into one self-enemy-- perhaps then all things come into focus.
the trick then is entering the present.
If your heart is large enough to envelop your adversaries, you can
see right through them and avoid their attacks. And once you envelop
them, you will be able to guide them along a path indicated to you by
heaven and earth.
-- O Sensei