Dear Friends,<\/p>\n
We are often susceptible to\u00a0 what is called “diminishing volition” which simply means that we start a project fully intending to perform it as promised, but find that our willpower grows more feeble with each passing day.<\/p>\n
Sometimes we are so thrilled to start a new Zen program that we pledge to perform an unrealistic schedule. Oh, we will rise at dawn, and do yoga and meditation for an hour, and then chant for half an hour, and finally eat a healthy vegetarian meal, and then get ready to go to work. \u00a0Not even monks in a monastery would try to squeeze such a schedule into their daily work routine. But we are euphoric and we sincerely believe that we can easily accomplish the goal.<\/p>\n
Then… on Monday, we have to skip the chanting because we were late getting up. \u00a0On Tuesday, we do only fifteen minutes of yoga and ten minutes of meditation. \u00a0On Wednesday, we have time only to chant for fifteen minutes. \u00a0On Thursday, we do the Sun Salute and drink a glass of orange juice with some pastry. \u00a0And on Friday, we’re back to our old routine of coffee and a biscuit before we hurry up so that we’re not late for work.<\/p>\n
Excessive promises are made in the irrational state of euphoria. \u00a0They are the other side of depression – when we don’t feel like getting out of bed at all. \u00a0The Zen Way is to lower the high and to raise the low, to meet in “The Middle Way.”<\/p>\n
There was a rich man who fell off a boat and was foundering in the river. He could not swim and he clearly foresaw his own death. \u00a0But a passing fisherman saw him and dived into the water to rescue him. \u00a0When the rich man finally was brought to shore, he was ecstatic with gratitude to the fisherman!<\/p>\n
“I have a gold coin I could give you, but that is hardly enough,” he said. “Instead I am going to sell my house and even my house cat. \u00a0And what I receive for the sale of the house, I will give you.”<\/p>\n
The fisherman was so thrilled to be rewarded in such a great way. He told his wife that after working so hard all their lives, they could finally enjoy their old age together in comfort.<\/p>\n
The days passed and the rich man began to think, “Ah, the fisherman was used to diving into the river. \u00a0It was nothing special for him to do.” \u00a0And then after a few more days, he thought, “Ah, if he had not saved me, then surely someone else would have jumped in to help.” \u00a0And a day later he almost resented the fisherman for expecting to be rewarded for something that any decent human being would do.”<\/p>\n
Finally, he sold his house and cat for $100,010.; and he gave the fisherman his reward… $10.00. “I am a man of my word,” the rich man explained, “I sold my house for ten dollars and the cat I love so dearly… my precious pet… \u00a0I sold for $100,000.” The fisherman who would have been happy to receive the gold coin was now cruelly disappointed.<\/p>\n
And so it is with most things in life. We must beware of “diminished volition” and recognize when we want to go overboard with our willpower we are susceptible to the limits of our inevitable diminishing volition. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n And then when we make a promise to start a morning Zen program, we limit it to a reasonable amount of time…. a Sun Salute, Five Healing Breaths, and a recitation of the Heart Sutra. \u00a0Fifteen minutes ought to do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Common sense promises made with the knowledge of our diminishing volition are safeguards against the irrational deals we make when we are higher than a kite\u2026especially when we\u2019ve been plucked from the jaws of death-by-drowning. An important lesson on the recognition of our limits<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":623,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":70,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,13],"tags":[18,32],"class_list":["post-621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english","category-essays-by-yao-xiang-shakya","tag-essays","tag-short-stories"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=621"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3575,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions\/3575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}