Instructions for practice.

All of the Buddha’s teachings can be understood as instructions for practice. As practitioners, it is our work that reveals the truth of the teachings. Put them to the test, contemplate them, digest them, resolve your uncertainty and doubt, follow your curiosity.

We all have an opportunity to be more present in the world, to contribute from a place of abundance and to bring about tremendous benefit and change. To actually do that isn’t easy, so we must follow a path and commit to a life of practice.

Step by step, we learn to work with the hesitation and fear, we learn to open up, to be more vulnerable and understanding, and to recognize the gifts that we can share with the world- gifts of kindness, generosity and compassion.

Pure perception.

དག་སྣང་
Tibetan: dak-nang
English: pure perception

Pure perception is the awakened principle that everything is regarded as the path. All circumstances arise as opportunities for practice. The dharma isn't just something we hear or read, it is our lived experience.

Ordinary perception is our habitual subject-object interpretation of the world. I have control over certain things in my life and other things happen that are simply out of my control. I struggle to reconcile my inner experience with the world at large, and purpose and meaning are driven by ambitions of conquest and control over the outer world. Ordinary perception is characterized by continual struggle and the ever urgent desire to gain a sense of security over our 'place' in the world.

With pure perception, everything is connected as a single mandala. Problems and obstacles are opportunities to practice. Challenging people present as teachers showing you the way to enact the practice.

Fundamentally, the principle of pure perception is gaining control over your experience. The world doesn't happen to you and you are not a victim. You get to choose how to respond. You get to choose whether you apply the teachings into practice, or whether you fall into habitual modes of being.

You get to choose. Awake, or asleep.

How are you going to follow through on your decision?

Idolatry.

The Dharma was taught to make our minds more flexible, to liberate ourselves from selfishness and bad habits, and to allow us to be of service to others.

Our practice of the Dharma must be free from concerns of gain, praise, status or position. Correctly practicing the Dharma means that you do what you say, that you strive to live according to the teachings. Your actions, practice and lifestyle are emphasized, not your words, ideas or opinions.

When we start searching out positions, contriving situations for recognition, or using the Dharma to serve ourselves, our practice has missed its mark and becomes a source of bondage.

If we wrap the Dharma around our self, our mistaken practice becomes the source of idolatry. 

Have you read this?

A key aspect to the preservation and transmission of the Buddhas teachings lies in the way that they are passed on from generation to generation.  There are certain teachings that anyone can read or practice. 

Choose a book, read it, reflect on it, use it to support your practice.

There are other texts that traditionally require a lung (pronounced with long u).  Lung is the Tibetan for oral or reading transmission.  It is an authorization to study or practice a text, but also more than that.  In order to receive the lung for a text, you need to get it from someone who already has the lung.  So the lung is a living transmission from teacher to student from generation to generation.  The teachings are alive because the lung is intact. 

The key aspect of maintaining the living tradition of the Buddha's teachings is the teacher-student connection. 

This also goes much deeper.  There are hundreds of teachings of the Buddha and other great masters that no longer have a living lineage of transmission.  You could find one of these texts, have it translated and read it.  It might be an amazing teaching that profoundly impacts your life, but who do you talk to about it?  Have you ever read a book that makes a huge impact on your life or perspective?  You want to share it with someone, you want to talk about it, discuss challenging sections. 

The tradition of passing on the teachings through an oral tradition from teacher to student ensures that the student has someone to come back to with questions.  They have a network they can tap into if they need it.

If you could only read books if you received the oral transmission, what do you think you would receive?  If you gave out oral transmissions of books that made an impact in your life, which ones would you want to pass on (assuming you had received the lung to begin with!)? 

If we only read books due to connections we had with others, would you be advocating for giving as many lungs as possible?   

Secret.

གསང་བ་
Tibetan: Sangwa
English: Secret, hidden

Many of the Buddhas' teachings, especially those of the Vajrayana, are described as being secret.  Their are many lineages of esoteric teachings that descend from Tibet, many which are dying out as the tradition meets with a global culture and modern civilization. 

Many might ask, if the teachings are dying out, what is the point in keeping them secret?

We think of secrecy or hidden teachings in which the practitioners are sworn to silence, vowing not to disclose the practice.  That is our ordinary perception and understanding of these teachings, just talk about them and they will stay alive and spread, right?

But the teachings are actually secret because they they are beyond mere words.  They can be shown, witnessed or revealed, but they cannot be explained.

The teachings remain secret unless we commit ourselves to them, unless we become the working basis for the practice to unfold.  The act of working through the practice reveals that which is beyond description.

The life of the teachings then does not depend on simply sharing the teachings, it depends on people committing their lives to their practice.  Once we have received the blessings of the lineage, it is up to us to engage in the practice and develop it to its maturation.  

The practice tradition is the holder of the secret teachings and it is this tradition that we must strive to keep alive. 

Support.

What supports your practice?

Your teacher.  Teachings to contemplate.  Your daily activities.  The community around you.

What challenges your practice?

Your teacher.  Teachings to contemplate.  Your daily activities.  The community around you. 

What's missing?

A simple monk.

A while ago I was talking to Rinpoche about the importance of building retreat centers and centers for study and practice in the West.  He recounted to me the origins of the practice and teachings of the Buddha.

At the time of the Buddha, there were no established centers.  Monks and laymen would convene at gathering places, receive teachings and depart.  The monks lived simple lives devoted to study and practice.  They had few possessions, wandered from place to place and were nourished by whatever alms came there way.  The monks would carry a walking stick and a begging bowl, clothed in robes and with shaven head.  All day, every day they were devoted to practice and integrating the profound teachings with their own life and situation. 

This was the way in which the Buddha's teachings were practiced and disseminated. 

We too can emulate this, bring it to its perfection.

We can live simple lives devoted to study and practice.
If our minds are not ensnared by fixation and grasping, we have few possessions.
If we don't hold to fixed positions and establish a ground where there is none, we live the life of a wandering yogin.
If we receive and work with whatever comes up in our experience without acceptance or rejection, we are nourished by alms. 
If we stand firm in our practice, leaning on it when we are weary, our practice becomes an unbreakable walking stick. 
Adhering to a simple discipline, we down robes.
Being free from the eight worldly concerns, we have the shaved head of a renunciate. 
All day, every day, we are devoted to practice and integrating the profound teachings with our own life and situation.

This is the way in which the Buddha's teachings are practiced and disseminated.  

Temporary and Final

Why do people meditate?

Is it to experience a calm mind?  To rest in peace?  Is it an escape from the constant turmoil and stress that pervades our day?  Is it to experience blissful mental states and profound happiness?

The reason people meditate varies, but all of them can be summarized as being of temporary or final benefit.

All of the teachings given by the Buddha were simply meant to accomplish the welfare of beings.  This welfare of beings is considered to be two-fold: the temporary goal of the joys of this life, a better future and a higher rebirth; and the final goal of complete freedom and total omniscience.   

Many people strive diligently for the aims of this life in hopes of securing happiness and a better future.  Actually, looking around that is pretty much the mold we are all made from.  Rare indeed is it to encounter those who honestly seek out complete freedom and profound insight into the human condition. 

Meditation can help you accomplish both.  In the beginning in brings you great joy, frees you from suffering and discontentment.  In the middle you abandon chasing temporary and fleeting apparitions and you encounter a deep sense of freedom and insight.  In the end, you tirelessly work to accomplish the welfare of beings.  Just like the Buddha. 

Why do you meditate?

What is truly beneficial.

The Buddha's teachings are not self-help,
they are self-liberation.
They are not meant to save your self,
nor to improve your self.
They are meant to liberate your self.
That is truly helpful.
Truly protecting.
Truly beneficial.