I am going to try speaking some reckless words, and I want you to try to listen recklessly.   Chuang Tzu

We’re in the fourth week of a 100-day practice period at Vine of Obstacles, the online support for practice created by my teacher Dosho Port (check here for more information.)  Each of us participating has set forth our intention and commitments to sitting zazen, to focus on one precept or similar work, to Dharma study and to “walking our talk” in engagement with the world.

One focus of my commitment was to work on a daily writing practice, informed by an accompanying focus on the precept of “not speaking falsehood” and right speech.  I’ve been feeling like I’m following through on all my commitments with the exception of starting up that regular writing practice again.  I kept finding a lot of difficulty in getting traction with that.

In thinking about the why and the what of my intention, a suggestion for how suddenly became clearer to me.  A voice (as a friend of mine often puts it, “the same one that told Noah it would be a good idea to build an ark”) said, “Posting these writings would help to keep you honest about it.”  Which sounded at first like a terrible idea to me.  But then it began to make some sense.

So…I will go ahead with that daily writing practice, and post the results here regularly.  It is not something I like doing, since I prefer to do lots of polishing to my writing, even what I put on here.   So I apologize in advance to anyone who finds this boring or raw or unpolished.  I can only ask that you read these words recklessly.   And hope there are a few words whose recklessness turn out to be an advantage.