ONLINE: Wed, Nov 5: David Weimer "Journaling"

I heard a quote by one spiritual teacher that a student of spiritual work is a fool if they don't keep a daily journal.
Why would a seeker write, and what would he write about?
David's comments on his agenda for the evening:

"Being on a spiritual path is odd. One can be on an internal path of investigation and inquiry without anything being apparent to an external observer. Unlike a man digging a hole, no sign of any activity is seen. For the most part, thinking, emoting, or anything else occurring within one’s sphere of internal experience, is invisible. Why does this matter?
It doesn’t. Except to illustrate a point. A guy digging a hole occasionally stops to eat, to sleep, to give up in frustration, or to rest. At those times, his shovel is left lying on the ground, tossed back in
the hole, broken in half, or stuck in the ground with his gloves stacked neatly on top of the handle.
A person’s actions are their footprints. Footprints are a narrative story of activity. When there is a fresh snowfall, we go outside in the morning and are astonished at the elaborate actions of rabbits, deer, squirrels, birds, raccoons, and coyotes. What a fascinating story each trail tells! Checking this thing out, digging briefly there, urinating on that tree, and so on. Before the snow came, there was no activity, right? Similarly, mental activity is hard to “see” without snow.
My daily journal, each white page, was fresh snow, and my angst, fears, hopes, desires, insights, struggles, and mental machinations were easier to see once I’d written them down.
Why write stuff down? Why try to be as accurate as possible when describing something? Because delusion is the default. Because, to me, it seemed to be the most sensible thing that I could tangibly do. Being a spiritual seeker, the only things I truly have, in the way of footprints, are the products of my mind (again, define clearly what I think that is). My thoughts. My emotions. My mental reactions to things that I experience or that seem to happen to me. My insights. My dreams at night. My?
Journaling was an integral part of my spiritual path.
I kept a daily journal for ten years.
I kept a nightly dream journal for a handful of years.
These practices were crucial, integral, vital parts of my modus operandi as a “spiritual seeker.”
Everybody, each individual, has their own way of doing things that “makes sense” for them. This example of journaling was mine.
In this Zoom meeting, I’ll share my thoughts on the practice and hopefully facilitate a hopefully rewarding (for each of us) discussion on the subject.
Having a piece of paper, physical or virtual, to organize my thoughts is useful and valuable.
I organize my thoughts and develop plans for each job in my current work as a self-employed residential remodeler, handyman, contractor. I write my work schedule on a piece of paper and tape it to my calendar. I use writing to organize my life. I can’t imagine doing what I do without writing. Perhaps if I was just digging a hole in the ground, I wouldn’t write anything down.
The purpose of spiritual seeking is to find something spiritual. I’m a big advocate on defining things.
Say what I mean by these two words. Describe. In detail. Spiritual. Seeking.
Write what you feel each of these two words means, in the context of your life and your personal ambitions.
I am not very good at adding a long column of numbers in my head (I guess I just don’t have the practice, or the desire to practice doing that).
I found, and still find, that writing things down helps me organize my thinking. It helps me work to formulate what I think about something (my estrangement from my sons, the state of our union, a situation with my significant other).
So, I write stuff down. When I’m at my desktop computer, after writing something down, or after writing some correspondence with someone, I read back over it and change things, remove things,
reorder things. Until it feels like the words say something that I don’t feel the urge to change any further. Until the words express what I mean. Until I agree with them."