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I would like to try to maintain this blog's irregular regularity. So I thought I'd describe what I'm doing now in terms of my Buddhist practice. Last year I completed the Four Ordinary Preliminary Practices, which are contemplations on the four thoughts that turn the mind toward the dharma. These thoughts are on

1. Precious human birth. Our current status as humans with time and ability to practice the dharma is incredibly rare, so rare that it would be foolish not to take advantage of the current opportunity.

2. Impermanence. Everything is impermanent, and so cannot be relied on for lasting happiness. Our current bodies will dissolve back into their component elements, and once that happens, we will not be able to take any of our possessions with us. Furthermore, if we have not practiced virtue, in our next life we will probably be born in a situation where we cannot practice the dharma, thereby accumulating more negative karma and perpetuating a very difficult cycle to break. Hence, we should practice virtue at all times. We don't know when we will die. Indeed, there are two certainties in life. That we will die, and that we don't know when. As the Buddha said, death comes upon you like a thief in the night.

3. Karma. Our actions have results, and when we perform virtuous activities, we achieve positive results. When we perform non-virtuous activities, we suffer. The results of our actions often take several lifetimes to manifest, but sometimes we can clearly see how our actions have led to results. For example, the alcoholic who sees his life collapsing around him will often attribute all of the negative events to bad luck, or the fact that world is out to get him, but once his mind clears a bit, he sees how all of these events were actually caused by his negative behavior. Similarly, right now there are many things which happen to us which seem random, but once our mind gets closer to enlightenment, we can see how our own behavior (in this and previous lives) has caused them. So knowing that our actions have consequences, we resolve to live virtuously.

4. The defects of samsara. Samsara is the cycle of existence in which most beings are trapped. I alluded to this cycle before. Basically negative actions lead to negative results which lead to more negative actions. Activity which seems virtuous can also lead to negative results. For example, doing something virtuous with the hope of looking good, or of getting a pleasant rebirth-- i.e. motivated by attachment and clinging-- can lead to rebirth in a Gods realm. Here life is great but once your supply of virtue has been exhausted, you die, and the immense suffering you feel as a result of having to leave will often propel you into a miserable rebirth. So the idea is to move away from cyclic existence, practicing virtue while not being attached to future happiness. A quote from the Buddha, talking to the monk Subhuti, is helpful here:

"Subhuti, those who would now set forth on the Bodhisattva path should thus give birth to the thought: `However many beings there are in whatever realms of being might exist, whether they are born from an egg or born from a womb, born from water or born from the air, whether they have form or no form, perception or no perception or neither perception or no perception, in whatever conceivable realm of beings one might conceive of beings, in the realm of complete nirvana, I shall liberate them all. And though I thus liberate countless beings, not a single being is liberated."

In other words, the way to become liberated (from samsara) is to aspire to help others achieve the highest form of happiness, which is to be liberated themselves, but not to be attached to the idea of doing so. A Buddha is able to encompass all sentient beings with his compassion, whereas beings like us who are still progressing on the path can only have compassion for a (small) finite number of beings.


Okay, so those are the four thoughts that comprise the four ordinary preliminary practices. Now, under the instruction of Lama Norlha Rinpoche, I'm doing the four "extraordinary" preliminary practices (Tibetan: Ngondro). The four sections of this are

1. Prostrations
2. Vajrasattva mantra recitation
3. Mandala offerings
4. Guru yoga.

I've been doing prostrations and Vajrasattva recitations since last July, and I just learned how to do the Mandala offerings. I haven't yet started Guru yoga. For each section, one must to 111,111 repetitions, although Rinpoche has said we only have to do 10,000 each to go to the next stage. He has expressed the wish that we complete all 111,111 in our lifetimes. These four activities engage different aspects of our body, speech and mind. Mandala offering, which I'm just learning how to do, for example involves offering a visualized universe full of beautiful objects to the Buddhas, thereby accruing vast amounts of merit. When one does this, one drops piles of rice on a mandala plate as a symbolic representation of this visualized universe, and repeats this over and over while reciting the liturgy in Tibetan. It's a form of tactile meditation or mantra, I would say. (This doesn't replace sitting meditation, but complements it.)

Anyway, that's the state of my practice now!