Crestone #4: Discipline

We have been at Nada for just over two days, and already so much seems important enough to write about. Just watching sun and clouds play off rocky Challenger Peak and the adjacent conifer fields can take all afternoon and is worth the meditation. The birds have been lovely. I think we have a piñon jay so far, but a little gray job with mottled breast and a very distinctive brown crown defies identification.

And reading. Cindy has finished The Pact by Jodi Picoult already, while I have waded into Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods yesterday and just now finished reading Mary Oliver’s newest collection of poems, Evidence, cover to cover. Trust me. You’ll be seeing some Oliver quotes in blog entries for the next little while.

But I suppose the most important thing I’ve read so far came in the Nada guest handbook provided in our hermitage. It appears on the second page -- just after the all-important schedule of weekly events -- so it’s safe to assume this idea is pretty important in the Nadan’s daily lives. The section is entitled ‘The Value of Discipline.’

I don’t know about you, but discipline is a real issue for me. I know how important it is to get things done. As a teacher, I had the discipline to get up every day and make it into school and provide kids something of value. I approached grading papers the same way.

And being a grandfather. I love to schedule time for the grandkids and just go do cool stuff. Dig a pond. Go on a picnic. Take a bike hike. Visit the National Museum of the United States Air force. A quote from the handbook spells out that desire factor pretty well: ‘Freedom is not doing whatever we want, but really wanting to do whatever we must.’ Being Grandpa Tom works like that for me.

But in other aspects of my life discipline is wanting. Too much other stuff distracts. The grocery. Reds’ games. Email. Surfing news and political websites. Taking Mom to the doctor. iTunes. All of this takes me away from the writing I’d like to think I’m supposed to be doing.

So one thing I’d like to think I’ve learned so far on this break from my real world, again from the Nada handbook, is this: The antidote to external rules is not sloppiness but internal rhythm.

I would like to get better at finding my internal rhythm. And that has a lot to do with paying attention. Mindfully. I’ve been reading some Zen stuff, too.

Today’s elder idea: If we skip discipline, an unfruitful looseness and lethargy result. If we leave ourselves wide open, we will never find our way to genuine freedom.

from the Nada handbook