Last week, my sword practice was strong and focused, but the last few days have seen an interesting decline in my concentration. Is it important to understand the factors that contribute to shakier meditation? In some respects, certainly it is. For each of us there probably are optimum conditions for any activity, yet as most of know, there are inexplicable ups and downs that must be ridden out, accepted with generosity and used for deeper insight.
Fortunately, I am headed up to Boston for evening classes at the Shim Gum Do temple this week. A teacher is important: he or she has vastly more experience in those ups and downs, and in the teaching itself. I feel enormously lucky to have such a masterful teacher in Chang Sik Kim, and want to spend as much time as I can in the presence of his teaching. My own teaching is grounded in my experience as a student, without it, my own students suffer.
It is hard to believe that the school year ended only a week or so ago, it seems so irrevocably far away. It was a year where so many important elements seemed to come together, whether it be graduates who have spent 3 or 4 years at TAS and thus were essential in bringing the culture and folkways of the school to a new peak, or the steady commitment to the structure of the school day, or Stephanie's work in bringing the teacher evaluation and support system into being, or my finishing grad school...it was a big year.
I will try to post from Boston on Thursday, but I tend to stay away from computers while up there. If I don't post, I will do so on Monday the 2nd.
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