On the first day of the 0,1, 2, 3 campaign, the struggle to keep chanting was real. I didn’t manage to do an hour’s chanting, but I’m not beating myself up about it. My ideal plan was to wake up and chant for an hour before getting ready for work but my bed was calling me. Actually that’s not quite right. The afternoon before I wasn’t feeling very well and had a lot of aches and pains. I felt the best thing was to get some rest as I hadn’t been sleeping well for a while now. When I woke I did a very quick morning gongyo and told myself in the evening I would chant.
After work I was still suffering with my health but managed to make it to my local Buddhist centre to chant. After 15 mins I realised that pushing my body to stay awake when rest was what it needed made no sense, so I decided to go home for a quick nap before doing evening gongyo. I managed to do 30 mins chanting that day and was proud of myself. It may not have been the full hour, but chanting gives courage, wisdom and compassion and for me, chanting 30 mins was the best use of those three attributes that I could give to myself.