I understand what you are saying about the difficulty of an intentional practice. I was doing a set of shape-mind (xing-yi) exercises that I learned from a book for a long time, and then last fall I just stopped doing them.
email to Adam Tebbe, editor of Sweeping Zen
I just read the interview with Scott Edelstein, which I enjoyed- interesting to hear the news, as it were.
Defining Enlightenment, from “The Tao Bums” Discussion
Checking the quote CowTao posted I find the following: