Here are two dichotomies here. In the West it is a very physical practice, and even meditation is a practice to become productive and more at peace. In the East, you think of the deep spiritual practices as a journey of complete dissolution of the self, the ego.
We take drugs because we want to feel a sense of connection, and we seek God for the same reason. The search, no matter where it's directed - divine union or cocaine - begins with pain that comes from believing you're separate from love. The key is using spiritual practice to turn inward, toward awareness, which is what we actually are.
Somewhere in my early twenties I realized I was pretty constantly monitoring myself, judging how I was always falling short, whether it was about not being a good enough daughter or friend, or my appearance, or whatever. I ended up becoming involved with a spiritual path in the yogic tradition, living in an ashram, doing a very rigorous spiritual practice.
For me, that's where my spiritual practice comes in. It's come from a lot of people that I've met that have influenced me over the years, and it's remembering those people, what they taught me.
Something I wrote quite a few years ago was, "The voices in my head, they don't care what I do, they just want to argue the matter through and through." It is a common mistake, to think you're going to go into some kind of spiritual practice and you're going to be relieved of the human burdens, from human crosses like thought, jealousy, despair - in fact, if anything, these feelings are amplified.
Up to now my involvement in the Tibetan freedom struggle has been part of my spiritual practice, because the issues of the survival of the Buddha Teaching and the freedom of Tibet are very much related. In this particular struggle, there is no problem with many monks and nuns, including myself, joining.
If you can't fall asleep, learn how to meditate. I would recommend you listen to a beautiful tape called Spiritual Power, Spiritual Practice [Energy Evaluation Meditations For Morning and Evening, 1998]. It was the one that got me out of my writer's block when I was writing Caramelo. It's by Carolyn Myss.
We do meditation, spiritual practices in this temporary body. Though this body is temporary, you have to use temporary things to realize the Truth.
Skillfully engaging in intimate relationships can be one of the most potent spiritual practices.
When you go to the hospital, there are so many medicines. You do not have to take all the medicines; just the ones that are needed for your malady. You do not have to eat all the medicines. Whatever kind of spiritual practices you sincerely want to do, you just take that medicine; do not collect all the other things.
If you want to make a decision in life on what to do, but if you're trying systematically, through spiritual practice, through meditation, through the invocation of the name of God, to walk closer and closer in this life to Him, you need someone to guide you. And God has made it possible in Islam for this guidance to exist.
I want art to affect the viewer and for the viewer to take it away to enhance, embrace, and elevate life. That's the spiritual aspect. Painting is a spiritual practice, but sometimes it is hard to give up control!
Here, the certain temple rule, this seems to me to have a certain responsibility to look after the well-being of society and look after Buddhism and culture. I consider these part of the practice of spirituality. There is no competition between spiritual practice and party politics. That is outdated. We already, since 2001, have elected political position. My position is semi-retired. I am looking forward to complete retirement.
Try your best not to get distracted from your goal. Let everything you do be your way of getting closer to your enlightenment; never take a vacation from spiritual practice.
A lot of times people do spiritual practice just for themselves. I try to turn that a little bit. I try to make spiritual practice more a part of the community. I write about infusing people with compassion.
This is the real and urgent reason why we must prepare now to meet death wisely, to transform our karmic future, and to avoid the tragedy of falling into delusion again and again and repeating the painful round of birth and death. This life is the only time and place we can prepare in, and we can only truly prepare through spiritual practice: This is the inescapable message of the natural bardo of this life.
...our life crises tell us that we need to break free of beliefs that no longer serve our personal development. These points at which we must choose to change or to stagnate are our greatest challenges. Every new crossroads means we enter into a new cycle of change - whether it be adopting a new health regimen or a new spiritual practice. And change inevitably means letting go of familiar people and places and moving on to another stage of life.
When something makes no sense, sometimes you make something of it. A joke. A spiritual practice. A life.
Joseph Campbell, who when asked what spiritual practice he followed said, "I underline books." Me too.
Spiritual practice . . . involves, on the one hand, acting out of concern for others' well-being. On the other, it entails transforming ourselves so that we become more readily disposed to do so.
Many people meditate in order that a third eye may open. For that they feel they should close their two physical eyes. They thereby become blind to the world. But the fact is that the third eye will never open. We can never close our eyes to the world in the name of spirituality. Self-realization is the ability to see ourselves in all beings. This is the third eye through which you see, even while your two eyes are open. We should be able to love and serve others, seeing ourselves in them. This is the fulfillment of spiritual practice.
I know some teachers say that you shouldn't display the psychic powers and other powers referred to as the siddhas, but as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't really matter. There are no absolute rights or wrongs in spiritual practice
When you approach spirituality as an adventure of being alive, you start as you would any adventure--with a sense of mystery and not-knowing. Instead of searching for answers that make you feel safe, you set out into the vastness of life and death, with a willingness to continually grow. You open up to the possibility that your ordinary life is an extraordinary adventure, and that your joys and sorrows have meaning. Spiritual practice becomes your rudder, offering direction and insight and discretion as you venture into the unknown.
We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become 'self feeders.' We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.
If you become obsessive in spiritual practice, if you just try and try, you are not going to be happy. You are going to be obsessive.
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