Time to start being a blogger....

My apologies to one and all. The past couple of months have been a bit of a downer and somewhat of an obsticle that has slowed me down to a crawl on practically everything. Unfortunately that has included my training at home and my attendence at the school. I think i've got it back together again now that the hollidays are coming to an end. Holidays are a time for fun, but the pandimonium (I cant spell) that is caused by the big holidays seems to have caused me to forget the important fact that;"Every day we are alive...is a holiday to be celebrated." I think my difficulties started comeing to a close a couple of days ago when I started reading more philosophy and Chinese meditation and Zen. I came across a simple passage that made me think about myself a bit.
"Don't worry about going slowly; start panicking when you stop."
That simple little phrase made me take a moment and think. Then smile and nearly laugh at myself. It states something that I have told many people over the years...and for nearly two months I haven't followed that simple belief. I've heard many saying about following one's own advice...perhaps I should listen to myself. :)
Heres a few quotes I like that come from "The Little Zen Companion";

"Soon the child's clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preceptions and abstractions. Simple free being becomes encrusted with the burdensome armor of the ego. Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn. The sun glints through the pines, and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise. After that day...we become seekers."
-Peter Matthiessen

"If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?"
-Dogen

"The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there."
-Robert M. Pirsig

A monk asked Yueh-shan,"What does one think of while sitting?"
"One thinks of not-thinking,"the Master replied.
"How does one think of not thinking?"the monk ask
"Without thinking,"the Master said.
-Zen Mondo