Day 15

I went to bed last night feeling great. I had a superb meditation, did an extra-long yoga session and finished it off with a bike ride into a cold shower. It's rare that I get to accomplish that much in a single evening, but since I don't work tomorrow morning or evening (I still gotta head to the elementary school), I can stay up a bit later. So, I did and finally hit the hay around 2am. Korea is much more of a late-night country than, say, America. Six hours later I was up and ready to head down to the park for some cleaning. I hopped in the shower, DIDN'T grab a bite and opened the door. 

RAIN!

Of course it was raining. I turned on the weather.

RAIN!

I looked at about a dozen or so forecasts online.

RAIN!

RAIN!
RAIN!
RAIN!
RAIN!
RAIN!
CLEAR -nice

RAIN!

RAIN!

It's looked like rain is not only is store for today, but for the entire weekend.  Great. You might recall from my Buddhist month that rain was supposed to be one of the greatest days for reflection and meditation. For Jains, rain is not supposed to be a hindrance. Waiting for the rain to stop is the same as waiting in vain for something that is unknown.  Bad weather is ceaseless in the life and if we can only do good for ourselves and the world when the weather permits, then we're bound to miss a lot of opportunities for liberation.

I thought about this concept pretty hard and as much as I wanted to follow the words of the Lords, walking around in the soggy grasses of a flooded Han River picking up trash just didn't appeal to the modern and--dare I say--civilized person in me. I decided to call the whole thing off and rework my day. 


What to do... 


Read scripture? Meditate? Troll around people eating in hopes of being offered some food? Nah. That's boring and I've been doing that for the past two weeks. I've been really careful about not wasting my time these days, but on a day like today, I simply had nothing to do and it occurred to me that aside from this project and reading, I have pretty much nothing else to do inside on a rainy day. Can I allow myself to be super lazy and just watch mindless TV?


Should I exert myself more?

It is said that two definitions of exertion are given; but in what does the exertion of the virtuous consist, and how is it defined? Some say that it consists in works, and the pious in abstention from works. Men appear divided into two classes from this point of view.

Alright, so as a pious follower, I am to abstain from doing anything. Figuring out what that means is hard though. Well, from what I can gather,  exertion which "leads to works" will only lead me to fall into the traps of desire. The opposite of that is "exertion not leading to works". 

As a tortoise draws its limbs into its own body, so a wise man should cover, as it were, his sins with his own meditation. He should draw in, as it were, his hands and feet, his mind and five organs of sense, the effect of his bad Karman, and every bad use of language.The virtuous exert themselves with regard to the distant end One should live indifferent to one's own happiness, calm, and without any attachment. Do not kill living beings, do not take what is not freely given, do not talk false, treacherous speech! This is the Law of him who is rich in control.

That does bode well for boredom. I think I'll just read a book and listen to the rain fall. Man, Jainism is not for the weak.