Determinations, Sansho Shima and Small Victories

I recently made some determinations for this year and the first one that I need to achieve is to get my blood pressure sorted out and that's within 3 weeks as I'm likely to be put on tablets on my next visit to the doctors. I'm not so against the idea that I would refuse, and if I need them, then I need them. However, I really want to avoid this if possible.

Basically before Xmas a chance visit to the doc revealed my BP to be really high. A week of exercise and better diet did bring it down but still pretty high and it's stayed similar ever since. A week or so ago, I bought a home BP tester and as I suspected, my BP is lower when taken at home, though once again, still too high. Through using that, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that it's predominantly anxiety which is the root cause of it and so decided to try to address that.

The first thing I did was to get some guidance regarding it from a Buddhist perspective which was really useful. I think the key phrase that summed it up for me was:


"I do believe that a high life state – or specifically Buddha state – does preclude anxiety. Anxiety must be an aspect of fundamental darkness – a lack of confidence in life and a lack of understanding of life causing low level fear. So daimoku must be the starting point, together with study and action for Kosen-rufu (shakubuku), all of which raise our life state."

I think it's the 'lack of confidence in life' bit that stood out for me ... although I'm fairly outgoing, my anxiety could well be a manifestation of that. With regards to the other bits .. my study is pretty good but my daimoku is a bit random if I'm honest.

We often hear of people chanting to be in rythm with the universe but it occurred to me that I'm not really even in rythm with my own life ... that was probably best summarised by the last two morning gongyos being done in the middle of the afternoon !! So, yesterday, I spent some time planning a new daily schedule starting with my alarm being set for 7am so that I could a) get an hours chanting done in the morning and b) get more work done while allowing time for other things. I am self employed and work from home which is great BUT, with that needs to come an element of self discipline .. something it seems I lack.

Anyway ... the new schedule looks quite do-able and also allows time for a swim/gym at lunch and an hours free time in the afternoon to read/watch TV/paint or whatever.

And then today, .... sansho shima kicked in ...

My alarm was set for seven but I woke at 5am .. probably because I ate really late after coming back from a buddhist meeting. I tried to get back to sleep but it just wasn't happening. Now, usually, if I don't get enough sleep, I'd simply scrap all my new schedule ideas and have a useless day instead and more than likely abandon the idea alogether, but today, I decided to stick to the schedule 'no matter what' ... so I eventually got up at 7am, having not slept since 5am, and did do an hours chanting with morning gongyo. The next bit of my plan was to go for a 15-20 minute 'walk to work' .. ie a walk round the block before starting work ... I usually find a bit of exercise relaxes me a bit ... of course, when I did the schedule, I was thinking of a nice stroll in bright sunshine ... and what was the weather like ? grey and drizzly .. once again, I'd normally think ... "manyana" .. but once again I decided to actually go for the walk and it was ok actually ... sun would have been better but !!!

The next challenge was the lunch time exercise ... I did consider not doing it as I was tired but as my BP was really high this morning, I thought it was probably wise to do some exercise to relax a bit ( I suspect it's high because of the lack of sleep but not sure) so once more .. I stuck to the schedule and went for a walk followed by a swim at the gym (fortunately realllly close by).

And then came the 'treat' bit (after a period of work of course .. I do actually do some ;).. I've allowed myself an hour in the afternoon to do something such as read or paint or something creative, however, today I decided to put my head down for half hour or so to catch up on sleep a bit .. well .. I deserve it :-) and that was nice .... though longer would have been nicer :)

And then back to work ... which I'm now coming to an end of. Just evening Gongyo to do at 6.30pm and I'll have succeeded in my first day or new routine.

So all in all, it's not been a great day but I guess that in itself is a small victory .. the fact that despite feeling like shite, I stuck to my schedule even though I really didn't feel like it .. and that's when I usually just give up ..... Is it a turning point .... let's see if I can keep it up :)