Consistency in Practice

 Consistency is very difficult in meditation practice when the body is tired and a person is busy. I think that one of the keys to consistency is not to try to "look for" it in a particular form, such as a meditation posture or frame of mind that is always the same. Doing so risks creating a dogmatic approach, not just toward meditation but to anything in particular. Ask yourself the question: in any job you have done or place you have lived in, has everything always been the same? Has it always been a bed of roses? Chances are, in any practice situation, one is going to experience all sorts of ups and downs, and it's best to ride it all out rather than picking one experience as the best one.
   Tonight, one of the practitioners in the group meditation had asked, what is the best way to deal with drowsiness during meditation, or those "dreamy" thoughts that one has just before falling asleep?  I thought about my own practice, and I realized that much of this kind of mental behavior has a kind of natural cycle. For one, those drowsy thoughts likely arise from a physically and mentally drained mindset. It is very hard in those moments to retain any method, but an attitude is possible. For example, if I am being judgmental, and telling myself "this is not the place or time to feel drowsy" then I am probably going to tire myself out in having those kinds of thoughts. If, on the other hand, I decide that I am not going to judge those wandering thoughts, my mindset becomes more relaxed, and I am able to go to, "where are all these thoughts coming from?" "What is their root basis?" And then all this tension over what is "good" practice turns to curiosity to know what is the mind that insists on "good" practice? Rather than relating to these dreamy thoughts in a mechanical, suppressing way, I start to investigate the source of them.
   My point is, practice is exactly what is happening right now, no more and no less. As long as the present becomes a method, it can be seen in a way that is not distracting but goes to the heart of all things.