Not just meditation?
Many of us were initially drawn to Buddhism and Dharma practice through meditation. Due to Buddhism’s relative youth in the West, it can take years of practice and learning to realize that the Buddha was not simply pointing to the practice of meditation; he taught a system practiced throughout life.
It can be easy to picture the Buddha’s students living a life of only meditation, but the reality is that their lives encompassed much more than meditation practice.
This guide covers ways of expanding practice beyond simply meditating.
A life of meditation and more
The Buddha taught that practice leading to contentment and freedom from vexation is much more than just meditation. A simple formula we can remember for how to practice like this is as follows:
When mind can be free from vexation, simply rest in freedom. When entangled, do good deeds.
This can also be stated as:
Wake up as much as you can, help all beings.
What good deeds might we try during moments of entanglement? The six paramitas are an excellent and simple way to approach this.
When we get caught or feel entangled, practice one or more of the following:
- Giving and generosity
- Kindness, non-harm and ethical living
- Patiently enduring
- Diligence and healthy follow-through
- Meditation and experiencing without perceived separation
- Wisdom and being engaged and a good fit in the present moment
Write down and memorize these qualities and come up with simple ways to practice one or more of them when difficulties come up.
Here are some examples:
- Giving connection, sincere listening, time, and resources to another being or to our own bodies and minds.
- Living and reflecting on how we have lived in ways that lead to ourselves and others feeling more safe and secure.
- Observing the body, mind, and the world patiently and curiously without an agenda.
- Following through on activities we feel are healthy or beneficial without toxic and harsh styles of motivation. Celebrating successful follow-through.
- Meditating and softening perceptions of separation from what is sensed. Be soft and natural, and let what happens be experienced without resistance.
- Freely change with what is occurring while learning from whatever happens.
In addition, with enough practice, each of the meditation practices above will also be able to fulfill all six of these practices simultaneously.
Dharma as an art of living wisely
If we spend roughly 8 hours sleeping, this leaves about 960 minutes spent awake each day. A simple way to look at Dharma practice is to examine how we feel about how these minutes were spent.
We go through our day, with some parts spoken for with obligation and needs, some parts more free.
When mind can be free from vexation, simply rest in freedom. When entangled, do good deeds.
Wake up as much as you can, help all beings.
Each minute is a new chance to explore this way of living. Simply observe how it is right now. When free, appreciate and learn about what it is like to be free. When entangled, can we infuse this moment with a good deed?
In this way, we make an art out of each day. There is no need to be hard on ourselves about how it goes. Simply look at how the day went and aspire to learn where we might try to use this art of living more skillfully. Living in line with this approach to life feels rewarding and leads to great things. This makes it easy to incline toward this healthy style of living more each time we experiment with it.
We don’t need to worry so much about what happens to us, just check how you seem to be operating. Are things free or are they entangled? What is the best way to respond? How were the minutes spent? This is such a simple way to look at life.
A Seon Master once said: “A dog knows its job. A cat knows its job. Human beings don’t know their correct job.”
What is this job?
When mind can be free from vexation, simply rest in freedom. When entangled, do good deeds.
Wake up as much as you can, help all beings.
Putting down your opinion, your condition, your situation, and keeping correct function, correct situation, correct relationship, find what is a good fit and see how rewarding and relieving it feels to finally live in line with our true job.