Over the years, many people have asked how to bring practice into their lives. When the question is worded this way, it is very difficult to find a good answer. Yes, you can set mindfulness or attention reminders, you can make a point of practicing taking and sending when you struggle with difficulties, and you may even be able to drop into empty awareness during a walk, while you garden, and even in a conversation. But the result is a patchwork of efforts. It is hard to keep track and all too easy to forget.
Basically, when life is the higher priority, the demands of life will, inevitably, take precedence over practice.
What happens when the question is changed to “How do I make life my practice?” That is, practice is life. When the question is phrased this way, practice comes first, and your life is how you live practice. This is different.
Practice has two components: formal practice and living practice.
Formal practice of some sort is essential. The demands and rigors of formal practice purify both our understanding of what we are and what is important to us and why. “My life is my practice” may be true, but without a formal practice component, this stance doesn’t cut it. It leaves too much leeway for indulgence.
Living practice is how formal practice takes expression in life. We develop skills and abilities in formal practice and then apply those skills and abilities to everything we do—how we walk, how we talk, how we eat, how we sleep. We learn what is and is not possible and what works and does not work. Most importantly, we learn the difference between having an idea of being awake and present in life and what being awake and present in life actually means.
In this practice tip I have boiled down my own efforts at living practice to five principles, along with brief descriptions of how they each take expression in life. You don’t need five. Three is a good number as a start.
When you have read this over, sit down and compile a similar list for yourself—three to five ways in which your formal practice already takes some form of expression in your life right now. Whatever you come up with, however imperfect the expression, it’s a starting point. Because you already have a connection with those principles, you are able to extend, broaden, and deepen their expression.
Here are the five that have been and continue to be important to me. Are they taking expression all the time? No, not by any measure. But they are the aspects of living practice with which I have a solid connection, and the ones that I work at steadily.
Intelligence
In Buddhism, intelligence is regarded as the ability to discern differences. There are many kinds: physical, emotional, conceptual, social, artistic, spiritual. . . .
The list could go on for quite a while.
Each person has their own mix of different kinds of intelligence. The point here is not to try to emulate another person or adopt a given mix but to learn what kinds of intelligence you have naturally and what kinds you can develop. You then deploy those various intelligences wherever they are called for in your life.
For instance, one area in which I have developed some intelligence is language. Language has always been a special concern for me because it is one of the primary ways we lose our way, both in spiritual practice and in our lives. I have made a point of learning and identifying ways that words lead us astray.
When I speak or write, whether to others or to myself, I seek to do so in such a way that I do not lead anyone astray, that what I am trying to say does not trigger reactions, that what I say rings true and goes straight in. To do this, I pay attention to the words and phrases I use, how I use them, and how they are heard.
Listening
Listening involves opening to what I experience in body, heart, and mind. When I listen, my attention includes not only what is being said but also what is arising in me as I hear it. If I start thinking about how I might respond (or react), I have stopped listening. When that happens, as in meditation, I return to listening.
As my ability to listen developed, I became increasingly aware of connections, nuances, and feeling tones, all of which contribute to how I understand what is being said. In particular, I have learned to hear when there is an imbalance and where that imbalance might come from—for instance, from something not being said, from something being stressed, or something being hidden. For me, listening applies as much to my internal struggles as it does to what goes on in the world.
In Buddhism, intelligence is regarded as the ability to discern differences.
Emptiness/Awareness
Where a reaction arises from the play of reactive patterns or confusion, a response arises from empty awareness. A response is more likely to arise when I make the effort to touch the natural stillness and clarity of mind, and let it arise from there, undistorted and unconfused by the play of physical, emotional, and conceptual reactions. As Rumi wrote, “A white flower grows in the stillness. Let your tongue be that flower.”
Whatever I am experiencing, I encounter two challenges: to recognize reactions and confusion and to touch empty clarity.
Whether in individual consultations with students, figuring out what to write on a given topic, or planning for the future, I have learned to trust stillness and what arises in stillness. The response itself seems to arise from nowhere, and it often feels so natural that I don’t think of myself as doing anything.
Balance
Much of my life I was so out of balance that I had no sense of balance or imbalance. Gradually, through formal practice, I developed the ability to sense the difference. Often that discernment arises as an almost physical sensation. Now, when I discern imbalance, I move in the direction of balance to the best of my ability. Sometimes that direction is clear. Other times, I have to listen carefully before I sense it.
I am never in balance per se. Balance is dynamic and ever-changing. As soon as I act, the balance point moves. I must listen again to discern how to move in the direction of balance.
Balance involves obligation: Where and when am I obliged to act? I have come to understand that obligation arises out of my personal choices as to where I take a stand in response to imbalance. I can only know where to stand when I am not being run by emotional reactions and conceptual confusion.
Personal responsibility
I am responsible for my actions and what results from my actions. No way of life nor any path of practice can ensure that everything turns out as expected or intended. When the results of my actions are different from my intention, the ethical response is not to blame someone or something but to accept responsibility and learn from what happened. In particular, what could I not meet, open to, understand, or serve? I do not hold others responsible for problems stemming from my own decisions and actions, whether those decisions came out of my reactivity and confusion or out of emptiness and awareness.
When I moved to Los Angeles, in 1985, at the behest of my teacher, I felt that I had been sent, and that I didn’t have a choice. The first two or three years were very difficult. People around me asked me time and again, “Why did you come?” My answer was always, “Because Kalu Rinpoche sent me,” to which they invariably replied, “Yes, but why did you come?” It took me quite a long time to connect with my own agency and take responsibility for my decision to come to Los Angeles. Once I did, everything I was doing came into question and a profusion of possibilities opened up.
To navigate in what was basically a new world, I came to rely on the bodhisattva vow—not as a vow to help beings per se but as a vow to be aware of what was getting in the way. This led me to discover and embrace a seeming infinity of ramifications of this extraordinary vow. (Incidentally, the Diamond Sutra has also given me a whole new understanding of the bodhisattva vow, even though it is mentioned only once.)
For instance, one morning, when I was facing a difficult situation, I realized that I could no longer rationalize any indulgence of my own confusion in either my personal or professional life. To put it another way, as far as the bodhisattva vow is concerned, there are no vacations. While that may seem like a burden, a weight, or a restriction, in practice, I found that life became clearer, cleaner, and strangely lighter.
Little by little, as my understanding and appreciation of the vow has grown and
deepened, the vow has become the main, if not the sole, principle for determining where, when, and how I take a stand.
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Adapted from “Unfettered Mind,” the author’s newsletter.