Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are

In the Christian mystical tradition one of the great texts is Dark Night of the Soul by Saint John of the Cross, in which he talks about the periods of loneliness, fear, and doubt that one goes through after the initial awakenings into the light. Evagrius,

Martin Luther King, Jr., understood this when he said, “If a person sweeps streets for a living, he should sweep them as Michelangelo painted, as Beethoven composed music, as Shakespeare wrote his plays.”

To continue this journey requires reinforcing the necessary foundation of virtue. By establishing a practice of basic morality, of nonharming, virtue becomes a safeguard on the path, guiding and protecting us and all we touch from harm. In the simplest fashion these safeguards are spelled out in the five traditional Buddhist precepts: (1) not killi

Living Buddhist Masters.

I had many teachers, but the most central were two of the wisest Theravada teachers of the past century: one in Thailand, Ajahn Chah, and one in Burma, Mahasi Sayadaw.

Sarvodaya combines Buddhist principles of right livelihood, right action, right understanding, and compassion and has organized citizens in one-third of that nation’s villages to dig wells, build schools, meditate, and collaborate as a form of spiritual practice.

book Cutting through Spiritual Materialism by Chögyam Trungpa. We can become attached to noble views and ideals,

Buddha in the Jungle by Kamala Tiyavanich. From her research of Buddhism in Thailand, extending back to the earliest written records of previous centuries, you see a very wide range of meditation practices in use. You read how the forest lineages included healers, educators, schoolteachers, priests, peacemakers, and meditators; some were soothsayer

Dipa Ma and other Buddhist teachers demonstrate the remarkable possibilities of the awakened heart. In Transformations of Consciousness, Harvard psychologist Jack Engler reports on his study of Dipa Ma and other advanced meditators.

“Praise Allah, and tie your camel to the post.” Pray, but also make sure you do what is necessary in the world.