On Productivity by Lindsay Sihilling

Katie was teaching full time, getting her Master’s, leading our group, trying to give up Mountain Dew, and training for a half marathon when she gathered to say: “This is the wrong kind of living.” She quit all of her commitments, leaving every weeknight without an obligation, opening up space and time for leisure and cooking and the lightness of having nothing to do after work.

Still, this is the one of the most profound acts of productivity I know. Losing the packed schedule to gain restfulness at home; shutting down the bustle of traffic from meeting to meeting, and opening up the chance that her husband might come home to someone fully herself, a wife reading at the table, productively doing less.

Wednesday 19 September

A sunny day
70 degrees

Sitting outside together
We discuss the future—

Prospects, possibilities,
The quixotic quest for balance in this topsy-turvy world

You ask me if I am happy
And it arises in me

Epistolary Ecstasy

A while back, I read a selection of letters of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: Hand-written, wild typed marvels and postcards, written and sent from around the world—on work, books, loves, life, loss, Dharma, and gossip.

I marked the following passages for one reason… or another.

AG: You ought to write a beautiful book someday which like Rabelais and Quixote and Boccacio is filled with tales, poems, riddles, lyrics, and secret phrases.

JK: On the Road is the name of this opus; I want to write about the crazy generation and put them on the map and give them importance and make everything begin to change once more, as it always does every twenty years.

Before Class (Waking Up 101)

In the School of Revolutionary Mindfulness
When students arrive early to class
No Smart Phones  are anywhere to be seen

In the minutes before class begins
Students and teachers are sitting
Breathing calmly and smiling

   "This afternoon, we were trying to fish, but the fish would not bite," said Petrus.  "Normally, we allow enthusiasm to elude us when we are involved in such mundane activities, those that have no importance at all in the overall scale of our existence.  We loose our enthusiasm because of the small and unavoidable defeats we suffer during the good fight.  And since we don't realize that enthusiasm is a major strength, able to help us win the ultimate victory, we let it dribble through our fingers; we do this without recognizing that we are letting the true meaning of our lives escape us.  We blame the world for our boredom and for our losses, and we forget that it was we ourselves who allowed this enchanting power, which justifies everything, to diminish - the manifestation of agape in the form of enthusiasm."

    - Paulo Coelho, The pilgrimage

    "Once, a poet said that no man is an island.  In order to fight the good fight, we need help.  We need friends, and when the friends aren't nearby, we have to turn solitude into our main weapon.  We need the help of everything around us in order to take the necessary steps toward our goal.  Everything has to be a personal manifestation of our will to win the good fight.  If we don't understand that, then we don't recognize that we need everything and everybody, and we become arrogant warriors.  And our arrogance will defeat us in the end, because we will be so sure of ourselves that we won't see the pitfalls there on the field of battle."

   - Paulo Coelho, The Pilgrimage

      "When you are moving toward an objective," said Petrus, "it is very important to pay attention to the road.  It is the road that teaches us the best way to get there, and the road enriches us as we walk its length.  You can compare it to a sexual relationship: the caresses of foreplay determine the intensity of the orgasm.  Everyone knows that. 
      "And it is the same thing when you have an objective in your life.  It will turn out to be better or worse depending on the route you choose to reach it and the way you negotiate the route."

_ Paulo Coelho, The pilgrimage

Composing "HOWL"

for friends who still write even though class-notebook-requirement-is-now-distant-dim-memory-cloud or friends who have survived my badgering to "write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it" [JK]


Here’s Allen Ginsberg talking about the process of writing HOWL, which is reminiscent of Natalie Goldberg’s project in Writing down the Bones, to free the writer within:

Impressions of Nicaragua by Tony Albrecht

Tony is currently in Nicaragua and sent this to a friend and gave me permission to share. -- Mark

below you will find a photo of me in a hammock taken 4 minutes ago. it's hanging up in what i guess would be the front courtyard. the one with the banana trees. the back one has the clothes line, spinach, herbs, tomatoes, etc. aside from the fact that there are bugs all over the place (due to all the rooms being open to the outdoors in some way), you'd absolutely love it here. for as much as you didn't want to leave haiti, i have the sense that you will get down here (guatemala will be fairly similar, from what i understand) and actually not leave. and i would love to see you in this environment. so much so that i've had the impulse to fly you down here and marry you on the spot. :-b. i'm not sure why i've had that impulse. i think it's b/c i love your energy and dedication, and this is a place where you'd be free to let those things rip unencumbered. 

"The pace of my life" by Jenn Reyes Lay

Breathing in, I know I am breathing in, breathing out, I know I am breathing out.  What is the pace of my life?  It depends on my enviornment.  In Sangha it is slow and conscious and purposeful.  In the morning I take my time waking up.  Enjoy the presence of Bella, Roger, my family all cuddled up in bed together.  I enjoy the slow morning walks with Bella outside, especially now the cooler weather is here.  Then work maybe mixed in with facebook, e-mails, or some tv.  Slow mornings mostly, which I love.  Lunch often seems hurried.  I have to leave for work by 12:30 so depending when lunch is ready is how fast I eat.  Most days no mindfulness goes into my food, no slow savory bites.  Just shove it all down, quick clean up, kiss goodbye, and run out the door to speed off to work.  Then at work it's very different.  Multi-task is the name of the game when you work in an office, espeically at the front desk taking calls, answering doors, helping clients and the lawyers.  Always more to do than gets done.  But I've learned.  I've learned from my last job no job is worth stressing yourself out over. No job is worth headaches and tension and anxiety.  You do what you can, when you can.  You take breaths and write priority lists, and sometimes you just have to accept it will get done tomorrow.  I used to worry about what my boss thinks, what my co-workers think.  If they are running around like a chicken with their head cut off or popping pills for tension headaches, I should be too... That's the sign of success after all isn't it?