It’s been a while since I’ve written a post (I’ve been too busy with my nose in books) and so much has happened since I last wrote that I feel like I’m going to explode if I don’t get it all out there and do it fast.
Before I do so, I would just like to say “thank you!” to everyone who has been following this blog and sending me supportive, and motivational comments everyday. You are all amazing and you have no idea how overwhelming it was for me to see how many of you have been following along and recommending this blog to your friends and co-workers. So thank you and I will try not to let you down.
As I said before, I have been so focused on studying that I haven’t had a chance to write lately, when I came across a chapter in my book called ‘Zen and the Art of Analytically Reasoning’ and I thought to myself, ‘no way’! If you don’t know the history behind this blog I started it after a read a book called ‘Zen in the Martial Arts’ and was inspired to publicly jot down all that I learn about life and having a zen mentality through karate. This chapter caught me off guard and as I started to read it it pushed me right back here because whether you are ‘busy’ or not- work, school, all these external aspects of your life are just branches of who are you. But the roots are your dreams and secret ambitions for yourself; who you want to be and what you believe in. Everything else is just noise and sometimes we get caught up in it, which is not a bad thing, but you always have to come back to your roots and remember what’s important.
This chapter spoke of how to live in the moment while writing tests, not to think of the last question you may have done wrong or to think about the time that is running out and how many more questions you have to go. This paragraph was so valuable to me because I have read this before, but know now that I have not applied it to every facet of my life.
Before me I am faced with a test that I have been anticipating and am fearful of failing. While I feel stronger and stronger physically and mentally at the gym and at karate there are major life decisions that I am up against that install so much fear that it is almost as if I must be two completely different people to be so confident yet so breakable. Having read this chapter I am reminded of Buddhists’ belief in the ‘self’: ‘you’ at any given moment in time are only a combination of bones and skin, and of your thoughts and feelings within this single frame in space. ‘You’, the second right after, can have completely different opinions and sense of direction and therefore there is no stable, constant ‘self’. Continue reading
My Daily Sanchin 