“Beneath our feet lies an infinity of paths…Each time we find our mountain we choose what kind of traveler we will be. And we cannot choose for tomorrow; we can choose only for this moment, this body, this breath.”
-Rolf Gates, Day 30, “Mountain Life,” Meditations on Intention and Being
Day 268 – I woke up early today to begin my newest adventure–a college level Pre-Calculus course. The first day requires 4-6 hours of time, or “half a day,” as the professor instructs. I can only choose to be present in the fringes of my big girl day, but I will do so late into the night, if necessary. In an hour, I could handily go through the tutorial, but I haven’t worked the problems yet–we cover 4 sections in one module this week, but I’m glad I played with the online homework/quiz site and my graphing calculator, and rented a hard copy of the 6th edition textbook already.
Today, Rolf asks us today why we would want to cultivate a mind capable of one-pointed attention? Will it benefited us spiritually? It seems that any challenge or task we encounter throughout the day requires focus and attention to the now. I thought that maybe taking a difficult math course will help me with this. Rolf agrees (to an extent), writing: “If we want to love anything, communicate anything, accomplish anything, we must have a mind that will go along with the plan.”