meditate almost every day. There is one practice I do every day come hell or high water, but on the hell and high water days it's done hurriedly and half-assedly. The rest of my practices fall to the wayside on those days. To me there's the ideal and then there's the reality. Ideally my practices should be done after ablution, on some sort of rug, probably early in the morning before distractions start filtering in. But today my room looks like someone projectile-vomited dirty laundry everywhere, and I'm sitting there thinking about how cute my dog is.

I say, "Enh." It doesn't bother me. I've got some kind of ember that keeps burning no matter what practice I do, because that ember is the reason I do all this in the first place. Do practices help? Sure, in their subtle way, but they're part of a bigger picture. They're practice. And as one of my favorite masters, Flylady, says, "Housework done badly still blesses your family." Amen.