Gnosis in a Hundred PagesPage 93 of 100 · Part VII

Part VII · Living it

The week, as a shape

A week is the right size for a practice to take root. Give it a simple shape: the daily rhythm, one longer sitting, and one look back.

Read to me

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Each day the same rhythm; one longer sit; one look back at the week’s end.

A day is too short to see change, and a year too long to plan. A week is the right size.

Every day

The same rhythm: the morning (page 89), awake through the day (page 90), the evening (page 91), the night (page 92). On busy days, a little of each. On free days, more.

One day a week

A longer sitting. Choose a day when you have time, and sit for half an hour or more, with Gene’s way on the Meditation Timer (page 72). Keep the same day each week, so it becomes a habit and not a decision.

At the week’s end

The three columns of page 88: what died, what was born, what was given. Notice which is shortest, and give it a little more next week.

With the moon

Something extra. Long experience in the tradition holds that the nights around the full moon favor the night practices. Many travelers keep those nights for the crossing.

None of this is a schedule to keep perfectly. It is a shape to return to. Some weeks you will keep all of it, and some weeks hardly any. Begin the next week anyway.

Try this

  1. Choose one day of the week for a longer sitting, and write it down.
  2. Choose the evening when you will do the three columns.
  3. Find the next full moon, and mark the nights around it.
  4. Begin the shape this week, whatever day it is.

In the old words

“One important factor, if you are really determined, is to be consistent.”

Beyond DreamingGene Hart
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