Up To Date Monk

I'm quite up to date - I have the flu. Whether it's Swine or not, who knows? Probably is, since that's what's around, but we'll never know.

Not bad - I've had worse. Some fever - it was about 100 for a while, but has begun to abate. There's also a headache, which feels like someone is taking a hammer to my skull. I think that is also going now, and I hope so, because the ordinary pain killers don't help much.

What I have,of course, is plenty of time. My ordinary pleasures and distractions - reading, listening to good music - aren't much available because they take energy and I don't have much energy, and of course there's the headache. I can't practice Sitting Meditation because the sitting asks too much. So I practice Lying Meditation and that makes the space around me and in me seem vast. I have more of a sense of the day, and how much there is of it than I usually do, and I want to take that with me back to my usual life when it resumes in a day or two. I want to feel the texture of each day and each part of it and do my work, my play and my prayer in that context. So there's a gift here, too. Each part of the day has as much personality and "climate" as each part of the year. If it took the flu to get me to notice that, I won't complain.

I've always wondered why I didn't meditate for hours on end when I was sick, since I had the time. My teacher says that it's because it requires strengyh that I don't have at that point. True. But little bursts are possible, and that's enough to take me one more step. How much more do I need?

Hopefully I'll be better put together by next week. But right now it feels like I do have what I need to be where I need to be.