Do it once, do it a thousand times.

I was noticing something today. There is this way that if you do something once, it can be whatever it is- amazing, touching, frightening, funny, or whatever, but as you repeat the experience it starts to lose something and fade.  But, then strangely, if you keep repeating it, it starts to gain something else, something unexpected, that seems to come not from you, but from the experience.  It is like this with old friends, old jokes,traditions like Christmas.  All those things we do because we do them.  After a while, the reasons we started seems almost arbitrary or forgotten, but over time, these actions gain the weight and polish of the care and attention we lavish upon them and  they are nourished and grow, sending out unexpected shoots and surprising leaves. 

Its weird how it can be the thinnest of things, the moment of chance, to do something once, but do it for a  lifetime and it gains form and substance, like Borges's dreamed man. 

What does that mean about our sitting?  Was Zen intentional, necessary, or fated?   Who knows; but whatever it is now, it is because we made it so with our care and love and aching knees, and racing minds.