I wonder if any feeling of discomfort is rooted in the need to take an action. I sit at my table and work on the computer. My hips and back get tired and achey, and I need to stand up and move around. My brain gets tired of working on the current problem, and I need to think about sun and flowers and mountains. I sense a strange feeling of lostness or loneliness, and need to preempt an engaging conversation with someone else.

Last night in Jackson Hole I watched a buddhist monk talk about “The Next Step” after reading books and going to talks to learn about Buddhism. His main point was very simple – the next step was to take action.

Funny enough I had come to that conclusion on my own only a few days before. I know a lot about what makes me happy and what doesn’t make me happy. I’ve don’t my homework learning about the rhythm of my life and the ebb and flow of happiness and unhappiness. I had decided that the only thing left was to stand up and engage my mind into the fold.

The monk said that you can learn all you want about the Dharma and Sangha, but if you don’t do it then all your knowledge is in the book, and not in your life. If it’s in the book, then what does it matter?
He moved on to tell us how to take action in the Buddhist fashion. That part went very quickly. He told us to take refuge, either in the Dharma, or your church or equivalent religious structure, and then about prostrations, mediation, and Mala.

The prostrations are meant to humble your spirit. Your identity and ego exist in your face and so should be put down and into the ground to remove the dominating strength of the ego. “Buddha make me humble, Buddha make me humble.”

Of course, the Buddha doesn’t “make me humble,” but the act of submission, or taking refuge in the Buddha (someone who has achieved enlightenment, and therefore representing a teaching to take refuge in), is how you can make yourself humble.

Moving forward I will try to take action, and remind myself to keep taming my mind towards egging in life and not hoping that it will engage me.

Moving forward, the question that I can raise about this now is when do you run out of steam to engage yourself? How long can you? Is it enough to simply remember to engage? Will i forget exactly how to engage?

I imagine that has something to do with where repetitious practices of religious practice come into play.