Pilgrimages to sacred Buddhist sites led by experienced Dharma teachers. Includes daily teachings and group meditation sessions. A local English–speaking guide accompanies and assists.
Bite-Sized Buddhism
Pema Chödrön comments on three slogans from the Tibetan lojong, or “mind-training,” teachings.
If you can practice even when distracted, you are well trained.
If you are a good horseback rider, your mind can wander but you don’t fall off your horse. In the same way, whatever circumstances you encounter, if you are well trained in meditation, you don’t get swept away by emotions. Instead, they perk you up and your awareness increases.
Abandon any hope of fruition.
The key instruction is to stay in the present. Don’t get caught up in hopes of what you’ll achieve and how good your situation will be some day in the future. What you do right now is what matters.
Two activities: one at the beginning, one at the end.
In the morning when you wake up, you reflect on the day ahead and aspire to use it to keep a wide-open heart and mind. At the end of the day, before going to sleep, you think over what you have done. If you fulfilled your aspiration, even once, rejoice in that. If you went against your aspiration, rejoice that you are able to see what you did and are no longer living in ignorance. This way you will be inspired to go forward with increasing clarity, confidence, and compassion in the days that follow.
From Always Maintain a Joyful Mind, © 2007 by Pema Chödrön. Reprinted with permission of Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Image © Kyoko Hamada
Have just come in from shoveling snow in my driveway after a hard nor' easter. Enjoying the warmth of exertion and glorious winter light. Being in the moment this afternoon.
Thanks, Idaleung, for this snowy blast from my past. I shoveled many sidewalks in my childhood in Wisconsin and now live in the Canary Islands, where for good and for bad, there's no snow to shovel. The light, the air, the heat of the exercise in the cold- the weight and the lightness of snow- this conjures a moment for me that is still present tho long gone. Makes me wonder if when we're really in the moment it doesn't make the moment eternally present...
What a nice and clear reminder. Thank you.
having experienced increased "gladness" following/and or/ due to years of gentle teachings.. including frequent to plentiful flashes of joy, recorded in journal drawings...am now past mid 70's in age..seems that "always maintain a joyful mind" kinda over the top to beginners..no wonder hearing lotta grumblings lately. the 'always maintain' actually is misleading goal.....did pema tell us about an earlier perfectionist flaw accompanying her recovering alcoholism? take it or leave it is always a good reflector...o drat theres the always again...must b my own perfectionistic parallel on the recovery road.