The path is what you’re doing right now
August 19, 2024 | 5 Comments
In the Buddhist view, there are three ways to practice the dharma. (Determining the way that is right for you is a matter of karma and inspiration.)
The first way is the path of monasticism. This is fairly straightforward in terms of understanding what is meant. You renounce this world and the things of this world—money, sex, buying a house, hanging out in bars, making a career, figuring out what to wear, raising children and so on—to devote yourself 101% to practice and study. Shelter, food, and housecleaning are provided and sustained by the monks and nuns themselves. They live in community.
The second way is the path of the forest yogi. These are people who also renounce the conventional world. The forest yogi sets out with nothing: no money, no shelter, no route to follow. In the olden days, these were wandering mendicants who meditated in caves and on cliffs, inviting the phenomenal world to teach them everything there is to know. When hungry, they walked from house to house with a begging bowl. Today, the forest yogis might be those of us who give up conventional life to become renegades or rogues. People such as Henry David Thoreau and Emily Dickinson come to mind. More recently, the great Buddhist meditation master and spiritual leader Mingyur Rinpoche walked this path. One day in 2011, his students knocked on his door and found that he had disappeared. For four years. During that time, he wandered in anonymity. His community did not know where he was or what he was doing. (He recently resurfaced and this is a bit of an insight into what happened.)
The third way does not involve renouncing this world. In fact, it involves the opposite. It is the path of diving headfirst into ordinary life and taking it and all its details—money, sex, buying a house, hanging out in bars, making a career, figuring out what to wear, raising children, and so on—as the path itself. This is a very interesting thing to do. It is just as profound as the paths of the monastic and the forest yogi. In fact, there are some who say that it is the most difficult path.
If you are reading this, there is a 99% chance that you are a Householder. It is a very potent path, my friends. It has the power to infuse the ordinary with profound magic. At the same time, it is what it is: preparing food, sweeping up, doing the laundry, watching television, riding the bus, and so on. The is-ness is the thing here.
The game-changing thing to know about the householder path is this: It is not a layman’s path. Traditionally, a layman is “someone who is a non-ordained member of a church, or a person who is not qualified in a given profession and/or does not have specific knowledge of a certain subject.” This definition does not apply. The householder path is not defined by what you are not. In our view, the householder is just as much on the path to enlightenment as anyone—but rather than using renunciation as a path, we use full-tilt engagement with the conventional world. Well, we do renounce one thing—that who we are and what we do have no meaning and thus we have no power to change the world. That view goes out the window entirely.
One could say that the householder path involves three stages.
In the first stage, we practice not being afraid of ourselves. Meditation provides the working basis. (For support, please consider signing up for the Open Heart Project sangha.)
In the second stage, we practice removing ourselves from the center of the universe to communicate genuinely with others. Caring is the working basis.
In the third stage, we take an unstinting interest in our world and every one of its details. We open. When we open, there is nothing to hold on to and so we enter a state of groundlessness. Letting go is the working basis. Some say that this is the same thing as enlightenment. Being unenlightened, I don’t know myself. But I have heard this.
Thoughts? I always love hearing from you.
Warmly,
Susan
PS: This post does not have a meditation video so if you’d like to practice together, please click here for last Monday’s video. The meditation starts at 11:27.
categorized in: dharma
5 Comments
I continue to find it hard to coexist around others that are not likeminded. As the elections approach in USA, I feel differences more deeply.
As someone who lives with one foot in each world, I sure get what you are saying. My entire family, save my wife, are rabid, gun toting, deer eating, right wing (going to vote for you know who) and think of me as a bleeding-heart weirdo.
I live in rural North Carolina and commute work in one of the most liberal cities in the South, if not east of the Mississippi (Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Durham.) Those folks have me pegged as the aforementioned frothing spewing, Joe Rogan watching guns nuts. They hate me!
The bottom line, election season fear of the other is engineered and the division is intentional. Divide and conquer. But I have found that there is a lot more common ground than the media would have us think. For example, my gun nut family thinks “Constitutional Carry” (permit less concealed carry of firearms) is insane and know that there are a lot of folks out there that should never own a firearm. Not perfect, but perfect is the enemy of the good.
When I look at the “them” that is beyond them that is camouflage and tattooed, the one that is going to be there when the rest of it dies, they are just like me. Afraid, confused, misinformed, suspicious of people that think differently than they do, and desperate for real authentic connection with others. What has never worked however, is cutting them out of my heart because they piss me off so much at times. (And they really do!)
Keep yourself safe, set bounderies and don’t put yourself in situations that are too much. But don’t make them the bad others either. They are only human.
Jack Kornfield said on a podcast I listened to recently (paraphrased, of course) that when people got like that, he just thought of them as 5-year-olds running around. I think he was on target with that one. Hard to hate a 5-year-old too much.
Many thanks for this, John.
Yes. I understand. At the same time, there is much to hope for–at least as much as there is to fear. Hang tough, stay open, and read what John said. A lot! Very helpful. xo S
I’m am amazed I have not found this before now, but I’m still searching for knowing and following the path.