Jana Sample
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Jana Sample
ParticipantWhat a great question, can devotion be to something mundane and not spiritual? I was thinking along this line while I sorted through what I am devoted to as well. And as you say, isn’t the mundane often the present moment, and when we really pay attention it’s not so mundane at all? Each little mundane thing is worth so much really. This is lovely, thank you for pointing to this.
Jana Sample
ParticipantThis is so lovely and true, each moment is the perfect teacher. This is something to remember often. Thank you for sharing this. 🙂
Jana Sample
ParticipantMy first reaction when thinking of devotion to a guru or Lama is “danger! danger!” I realise that this comes from my religious upbringing, and seeing my family still live with this very intense devotion and how much discomfort this brings up for me. This also comes from my experience watching many “gurus” in my field of Traditional Chinese Medicine eventually become outed as having some very disappointing and often quite repulsive habits and traits.
So I definitely feel uncomfortable when devotion is pointed to a human, as this path of devotion involves some form of surrender and giving over power or control. This human may, in fact, deeply embody the traits that one wishes to also embody and is therefore seemingly worthy of one’s devotion, but he is also inevitably and undeniably a flawed human being. But the line from the reading, “there is no difference between our mind and that of the Lama” makes me think that the devotion Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche speaks of is more about devotion to sort of what the Lama represents rather than to the person himself. The concept of our mind becoming “‘one’ with the mind of the Lama” feels like a way of speaking to the oneness of all once we sink deeply into meditation and let go of our separateness. In this way I can understand the importance of devotion.
I also feel very uncomfortable with devotion to a set of predetermined rules or dogma. From a very young age I remember asking a lot of questions about the rules of religion and being told, you just have to believe and stop asking so many questions. It never felt okay to me to be devoted without any chance for my own experience to give me insight, again this idea of surrendering to something that I did not fully trust.
Through my experience with mindfulness and meditation practice I feel I’ve developed devotion to understanding what really matters to me and how to live my life in a way that honors this. I feel devoted to working toward being more aware and conscious, and to spread kindness and care and love to other beings. I feel devoted to fairness and integrity in how I treat people and how I give of my resources. I also feel a lot of devotion to honoring what feels right in my heart and surrendering to and allowing my heart to be open.Jana Sample
ParticipantHello there 🙂 My name is Jana and I’m really excited to be on this path with all of you. I’ve been following Susan for many years and I’m so grateful to have this opportunity to learn deeper aspects of Buddhism, work with my own practice, and to learn how to help others do the same. I live outside of Lisbon in Portugal and for work I am a Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner and I teach pilates.
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