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[…] respond naturally and appropriately to any situation you encounter. “Well, that’s all fine,” you may say, “but how do I actually move from desire to renunciation?” You practice internal renunciation by moving into the experience of desire, instead of trying to fulfill or suppress it. Pick something you want, a physical object, a relationship, […]
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In the initial stages of practice, we are consumed by thoughts. As we continue, we gradually are able to experience thoughts as thoughts, and not be distracted by them. To be a little technical, when the level of energy in the attention is higher than the level of energy in what you are experiencing, […]
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[…] retreat. He excoriates the view that the first root downfall means absolute obedience to the guru. He is very explicit: you have to do everything your lama tells you only as it pertains to your spiritual practice. He says that the first root downfall doesn’t apply to how you live and function in the world.
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Many problems in meditation practice come from confusion about what we think should happen, what we want to happen, and what actually happens. One way to clear up this confusion is to be clear about the purpose, method, effects and results of meditation practice.
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[…] to use your body and the equipment properly, and capacity, having the strength and ability to grip or push or hold. Later, it struck me that Buddhist practice comes down to the same three points and that many of the difficulties and imbalances experienced in practice are due to not understanding which of these […]
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[…] of Buddhism are the product of literally hundreds of years of experience and refinement. It is sometimes difficult to appreciate the many dimensions of even a simple practice. I discuss here one framework for understanding what is important in practice and then apply it to our practice of returning attention to the breath. The […]
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[…] can have different views on the question of euthanasia, what are you to do when faced with the decision to kill or not to kill? A three-step practice from Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche provides a guide: See clearly Know what is Act without hesitation See clearly Cultivate a gesture with compassion. Because compassion puts you […]
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[…] what we are is our human heritage (buddha nature), and all the various spiritual practices, meditation, contemplation on such themes as impermanence, suffering, non-self, compassion, emptiness, koan practice (in Zen), the four immeasurables, taking and sending, etc., are concerned, at least in part, with removing the blocks that prevent that direct knowing or with […]
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[…] felt in our lives in the form of questions. We turn to institutions, traditions, and respected teachers, hoping to find answers to our questions. We study and practice, learning much that is helpful. When we really listen to our own questions, however, we know that we can never receive answers to them from an […]
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[…] mundane aim: to know whatever arises in experience, free from the projections of thought and emotion. Whether through the Theravadan practices of bare attention (mindfulness), the Mahayana practice of awakening to experience (bodhicitta), or the Vajrayana practices of direct awareness (mahamudra, dzogchen), the aim is one and the same: natural knowing that is not […]
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[…] developed from patterns of perception and interaction. The first step is to dismantle our internal representations and see the person for who he or she is. The practice of equanimity is the key tool for this work. By bringing attention to the arbitrary and fluid nature of internal representations, we first see them as […]
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[…] going through a door. The door is that experience is essentially ineffable: we can not say what it is. We can arrive at that door through meditation practice, by progressively seeing impermanence more and more deeply in our experience. We start with the observation that we are going to die, this life is going […]
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[…] the Buddhist point of view the mind-body system with which we identify has the seed of attention within it already. We simply provide conditions for sustained active attention to develop. The practice of meditation is the practice of providing those conditions. This is how we cultivate attention, just as we would a plant or tree.
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[…] to approach it and as one of the results. But Buddhist meditation goes further, seeking to cultivate awareness as well. This awareness is what differentiates a meditation practice or a mindfulness practice from a relaxation technique or stress management methods. Misconception 2: Meditation means going into a trance. Trance is usually associated with some […]
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[…] Then we work to remove the internal blocks that prevent us from using what we know. An alternative formulation from Buddhism is: “Recognize the problem; develop a practice; continue until the problem is gone.” The first step is to recognize that there is a problem. Then we develop a practice that brings attention to […]
