Although we sit every day, today feels like New Year's Day again – the starting line of the Challenge! Today, I'm much more aware than usual of the Great Sangha – each of us upholding every other in the silence every hour of every day. A deep gassho to you, and to all beings, everywhere.

Kem timed our meditation tonight with a new app she had uploaded to her iPhone. Kem's an early adopter, and I get swept along, the beneficiary of her enthusiasm. It rang us in and rang us out with what I could have believed was a “live” Tibetan singing bowl. The verdict: I liked not having to peek at the clock, but I missed inviting the bell to sound. It was a little like having a robot assistant. What would Buddha do?!

Truth be told, I love all our meditation toys – zafus and zabutons, a statue of the Daibutsu Buddha, maybe a candle, and our Peruvian mantas, bearing (to stir in another spiritual tradition) the accumulated shakti of more than 20 years of sitting together. I love the spare, clean lines of Zen, and, though I don't need them to meditate, I love our toys.

May we all be both enchanted and unencumbered in our journey to awakening!