AMAZING...

... I take a quick look at The Buddha Diaries, and realize I have entered nothing for two weeks. My last entry followed the second session of the meditation group that I've started in our Franklin Hills area of Los Angeles; and the third of the bi-weekly sessions was last night. We had a smaller crowd this time, but enjoyed an excellent sit--extending our time to about 40 minutes. Even beginners were surprised at how fast the time went. Next session, in two weeks' time.

It has been a quiet two weeks. Ten days of that time was spent in Laguna Beach. Rather than spending long weekends at the cottage, as we did for many years, we now tend to stay there for two weekends and the week in beween. This gives us a longer time span in each place, more time to settle in and adjust to the different pace of life in the city, life at the beach.  Last week, in Laguna, I managed to finish the first draft of the big writing project I've been working on for the past several months; this week, I'm doing what I hope will be the final edits.

Then time opens up ahead of me for a while, without any specific project to be working on. I have the children's book--have I mentioned this along the way?--now ready, with wonderful, whimsical illustrations by my friend Stuart Rapeport. And a book of "Skinny Poems" with which regular readers of The Buddha Diaries will be familiar--published piecemeal on this blog, most of them within the past year. I need to pay attention to both these books--either find a publisher (we know how hard that is!), or publish them myself (and we know how easy that is.) The problem with the latter solution, always, is distribution.

And then there's The Buddha Diaries. Do I take my neglect as a sign that this blog has run its course? Even this morning, the level of motivation was remarkably low. I must perhaps begin to look inside with more attention than I have been doing, and spend some time finding out what's going on there. The busy mind is always ready with excuses. Now, with less busy-ness ahead, the excuses look thin...